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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 
AND OTHER POEMS 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

And Other Poems 



BY 

HIRAM RICH 



BOSTON 

John S, Lockwood 
1913 



COPYRIGHT, I913, BY JOHN S. LOCKWOOD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



DEC 30 1913 

:i.a:{61370 



TO 
THE author's grandchildren 



NOTE 

The author of this volume, hke Edmund Clarence 
Stedman, was a banker-poet. For many years he 
led an active business life in the city of Gloucester, 
Massachusetts, but his hours of leisure were largely 
given to books and literature. A considerable num- 
ber of poems from his pen were printed in the 
Atlantic Monthly, Scribner^s Magazine, the Inde- 
pendent, and other periodicals, but they were never 
gathered by him for book publication. It has 
seemed to his children, and to his friend the pub- 
lisher, that a collection should be made of the 
published poems, and of others that were written 
for special occasions or are representative of his 
wide interest and his poetic gift. 

The opening group in the present volume — 
''Leaves on the Tide" — was so named by Mr. 
Howells when he used the half dozen pieces in the 
Atlantic for October, 1875. It is interesting to 
recall Mr. Howells' s reference to Mr. Rich in his 
"Recollections of an Atlantic Editorship," written 
for the Fiftieth Anniversary Number of the maga- 
zine. Speaking of the welcome that, as an editor, 
he gave to the work of Maurice Thompson, he adds 
that "he accepted every one of the twelve pieces 



viii NOTE 

offered him by Hiram Rich of Gloucester, Massa- 
chusetts, with as deep a pleasure in their new 
touch." 

Probably the author would have made slight 
revisions in some of the unpublished poems, if this 
book had been compiled during his lifetime; but the 
publisher has been at special pains to secure accu- 
rate copies of the manuscripts, and has also sought 
to make the volume a fit receptacle for the poet's 
work. 

Boston, November, 1913. 



CONTENTS 

LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

Leaves on the Tide i 

After Barren Mays 2 

An Immortelle 3 

Seeking 4 

Only a Glimpse 5 

Sand Castles 7 

LAND AND SEA 

Land and Sea ,. . . 8 

After g 

Difference, The 10 

Driftwood Gatherer, The 11 

Fisherman's Feint, The n 

Idler's Idyl, An 12 

Jerry an' Me 13 

looked-for 15 

Sunset 16 

Thrift 17 

Unfulfilled 18 

Who Knows? 20 

Wind's Reply, The 21 

INCIDENTS OF CHILD LIFE 

While I May 22 

An Intruder 23 

Her Bouquet 24 

Out of the Storm .26 

It Seems 27 



X CONTENTS 

COMMEMORATIVE 

On the Loss of the Onehja 29 

A Day of Days 30 

Verses read at the Hundredth Birthday Re- 
ception OF Mrs. Mary H. Gilbert ... 34 
Lines read at the "Procter Gathering" . . 35 

The Parting Word 39 

Day unto Day. Read at the Two Hundred and 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of 

Gloucester 42 

TRANSLATIONS 

Answer, The 51 

Bohemian Melody, A 51 

Bohemian Melodies 52 

Bridges 53 

Dream, The 54 

Flower of Submission, The 55 

In a Garden 56 

In Autumn 57 

Lying Bird, The 58 

Mist 59 

Moravian Melody, A 59 

Ocean of Hope, The 60 

One out of Many 60 

On the Lake 61 

Reared in a Room 62 

Rose and Thorn 65 

Slavonic Melody, A 66 

Spring 66 

To One at a Distance 67 

To THE Absent 68 

To THE Wind 69 



CONTENTS xi 

IN THE SEA 

In the Sea 71 

Blown Off 72 

Coast-wise 75 

Fishermen, The 77 

Misled 78 

Night's Peril, A 78 

On the Brink 80 

One Port alone .80 

Restless, The 81 

Sailor's Ditty, A 85 

Skipper Hermit, The 86 

Your Bark and Mine 89 

Afterglow, An gi 

After All q3 

MISCELLANEOUS 

"Among the Hills" q4 

ArBUTUSING g4 

Before and After 95 

Benison, a q8 

Beset g8 

Beyond the Book 100 

Book-Lover to ms Books, A .... 102 

Bread and Song 103 

Brook-Life 104 

Building 105 

Chances, The 106 

Days, The 107 

Fallen Castle, The 108 

Far Demesne, A 109 

Fever Fantasy, A 11 1 

Glimpses m 



xii CONTENTS 

Half-way 112 

Her Care 114 

Hymn of Life 115 

In a Quarry 117 

In Debt 118 

Interchange 119 

Later View, A 120 

Maid of Allevou 121 

Miller's Madrigal, A 123 

Morgan Stanwood 125 

November 1 29 

Now 130 

Over 133 

Overnight 134 

Question and Answer 135 

Return, The 136 

Routine 137 

Seeker, The 138 

Soul's Doubt, A 139 

Still Tenanted 140 

Summer Mood, A 141 

Thoroughfare, A 142 

Too Early 144 

Too True 146 

Unseen Hands 147 

Wanderer, A 147 

Who hath not 150 

Why? 150 

Wind the Clock 151 

Woman's Praise, A 152 

INDEX OF TITLES 155 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

I 

LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

Who that sees a flowing tide 
Can resist the wish to throw, 

On its subtle influence, 
Leaf or hke, to see it go ? 

I cannot : the stream goes by, 

And I drop upon it here, 
From the rose of life, a leaf, 

Light and warm, or brown and sere. 

K you see the warm and light 
Floating down and down to you, 

You will know the heart is near. 
Whence the bud so lately grew. 

If you see the brown alone. 
Here or not though I may be, 

You will know that sun and rain 
Somewhere have been sweet to me. 

So upon the creeping tide 
Now and then a leaf I throw; 

If a heart shall greet it, well ; 
If it sink, — the roses grow. 

I 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

II 

AFTER BARREN MAYS 

An apple tree, dead long ago 

To further hope of pink and snow, — 

Lone sorrow of the wayside there. 
An empty nest its only care, — 

Spring, in a rapture after rain. 
Kissed partly into bloom again. 

So have we known a melody 

Come in a dream from buried days; 
So have we seen a life grow sweet 

With blossom after barren Mays. 

It seems there is not anything 
Beyond the chance of blossoming. 

Nor any day too dead to be 
A better day in memory, 

Nor any life — the barrenest — 
But hath some dear, old, empty nest. 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

III 

AN IMMORTELLE 

A LITTLE while the roses bloom, 
A little while the soft winds blow, 

A little while the baby laughed, 
A little while, — from bud to snow. 

But after all the rose was sweet. 
And after all the winds have blown, 

And after all the baby blessed, 
And after all it is our own. 

If in our thought the rose remains, 
And winds are sweet in memory. 

Why should not then the baby gone 
Forever be a babe to me ? 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

IV 
SEEKING 

From my door the river winds 
In and out among the creeks, 

Looking, and whate'er it finds. 
Never finding what it seeks. 

For anon it turns again 

Toward the sea that drinks it in, 
Where the dory fishermen 

Daily bread would daily win. 

Day by day and year by year, 
Come and go the sea and wind; 

I am like the river here, 
Seeking what I never find. 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 5 

V 

ONLY A GLIMPSE 

Only a bit of the highway sunning itself on the 

hill, 
By it the beautiful river singing a song in the mill. 

Only a bit of the highway I see as I sit by the 

door, 
And the valley is pleasant behind it and the valley 

is pleasant before. 

People come out of the valley and into the valley 

they go, 
A shadow doth ferry the river, under a piloting 

crow. 

'T is but a moment I see them, — only a glimpse I 

obtain; 
What do I know of their losses? what do they know 

of my gain? 

I know they are bearing their burdens as I know 

that I do mine. 
And I know they have their gladness, no happier, 

heart, than thine. 



6 LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

For never a highway windeth over the earth, but 

there 
Feet of the happy are on it, — feet that are followed 

by care. 

The shadow that ferried the river hath fallen asleep 

on the sea. 
And the river, unheard by the miller, is singing a 

song in me. 

Only a glimpse of the highway I get as I sit by the 
door, 

But it hints of the journey behind me and the jour- 
ney, remaining, before. 



LEAVES ON THE TIDE 

VI 
SAND CASTLES 

Two children were making the most of the day, 
In the sand their castles building, 

While out in the harbor the sunset gold 
Was every vessel gilding. 

But the sea came over the castles dear, 
And the charm of the sunset faded; 

Oh ! after a labor is lost may we 
Go happily home as they did. 

For we build and build in a different way, 
Till our heads are wise and hoary; 

But after it all the sun goes down, 
And the sea — 't is a common story. 



LAND AND SEA 



LAND AND SEA 

The green land sings her song of praise 
And drinks the wine of summer days; 
From noon to noon, from dark to bright, 
She blossoms over with delight; 
Her daisies, that are dead to you, 
To me are full of golden dew. 

The blue sea lacks not anything 
That man can say or maiden sing; 
But what it says itself, or sings, 
Is but the thought the hearer brings — 
The maiden hears a wedding glee, 
The sailor what the wind will be. 
8 



AFTER 



AFTER 

There were ships upon the sea, 

There were shells upon the shore; 
Seemed a voice to say to me: 
" Choose a ship from all at sea, 
Choose a shell from all ashore." 

From the sails a sail I chose. 
From the shells a rosy shell. 

Now the ship my purpose knows; 

Now the shell is like a rose 
That is given with farewell. 

"Name them now," a fancy bade; 

And I named them both for thee. 
Ne'er such things thy name hath had; 
Never lover were so glad 

As thy lover, Poesy! 

It was all a dream, you know — 

Never such a choice were mine; 
But of all the ships that go. 
And of all the shells that glow. 
One doth all the rest outshine. 

Shell as holy as the grail. 
Colorless to careless eyes; 



lo THE DIFFERENCE 

Ship of all the ships that sail, 
Though you fade to some and fail, 
You will glow for me and rise. 

Blessed be the chance to dream — 
For a moment, if no more — 

If the things we dream of gleam, 

If they ever after seem 
Dearer than they did before. 



THE DIFFERENCE 

Men loose their ships, — the eager things, 

To try their luck at sea, 
But none can tell by note or count. 

How many there may be; 
One turneth east, another south, — 

They never come again; 
And then we know they must have sunk. 

But neither how nor when. 
God sends his happy birds abroad; 

"They're less than ships," say we; 
No moment passes but He knows 

How many there should be. 
One buildeth high, another low. 

With just a bird's light care, — 
If only one, perchance, doth fall, 

God knoweth when and where. 



THE FISHERMAN'S FEINT ii 



THE DRIFTWOOD GATHERER 

Ashore, a broken man, he eyed 

A broken spar afloat; 
Of winging cloud and ship and gull 

He took nor heed nor note. 
Rapt as a lone astronomer, 

Or like a brooding alchemist, 
He eyed it, every stay and stir. 

He marked it, every turn and twist. 
Anon, his palsy-smitten hand 
Drew the rare prize upon the land. 
But, O dear God, there with it came ashore 
His dead boy's jacket: — that he homeward bore. 



THE FISHERMAN'S FEINT 

She 

" I STAND in the dark on the shore, 
I hear the quick dip of an oar. 
And the rower, I know him, is near. 
The boat, oh! the boat has gone by 
In the dark, in the silence, and I, 
Deluded, forsaken, am here." 



12 AN IDLER'S IDYL 

He 

*^ I get not a glimpse of her hand, 
But I know she is there on the land, 
Where she promised to meet me at ten. 
I '11 row right away to my net, 
She will hear me and wonder and fret - 
Fret and be loving again." 

We 

If we stood in the dark on the shore, 
If we heard the near dip of an oar. 
And the rower went by us, ah! then, 
If after a little we met. 
Would we in a moment forget. 
Kiss and be loving again? 



AN IDLER'S IDYL 

A BORROWED boat, a certain sky, 
A tide whereon to dream and drift. 

Delay that never seems delay. 

Are more to me than gain or gift. 

A boat is broader than a hearth. 
To borrow better than to own. 

For Care is in a manner blind. 
And follows thrift by touch alone. 



JERRY AN' ME 13 

The miller's heart is in his toil, 

The sower's thoughts plod to and fro, 

And who hath anything at sea 

Forebodeth winds that never blow. 

Then, Life, for thee the idle oar, 

A drowsy tide to drift upon. 
An air that hints of hills new-mown, 

To lull thee when thy dreams come on. 



JERRY AN' ME 

No matter how the chances are, 
Nor when the winds may blow. 

My Jerry there has left the sea 
With all its luck an' woe! 

For who would try the sea at all. 
Must try it luck or no. 

They told him — for men take no care 
How words they speak may fall — 

They told him blunt, he was too old. 
Too slow with oar an' trawl. 

An' this is how he left the sea 
An' luck an' woe an' all. 

Take any man on sea or land 
Out of his beaten way, 



14 JERRY AN' ME 

If he is young 't will do, but then, 

If he is old an' gray, 
A month will be a year to him. 

Be all to him you may. 

He sits by me, but most he walks 
The door-yard for a deck, 

An' scans the boat a-goin' out 
Till she becomes a speck, 

Then turns away, his face as wet 
As if she were a wreck. 

The men who haul the net an' line 

Are never rich; an' you. 
My Johnny here, — a grown-up man, 

Is man an' baby too. 
An' we have naught for rainy days, 

An' rainy days are due. 

My Jerry, diffident, abroad 

Is restless as a brook. 
An' when he left the boat an' all, 

Home had an empty look; 
But I will win him by an' by 

To like the window-nook. 

I cannot bring him back again 
The days when we were wed. 

But he shall never know — my man — 
The lack o' love or bread. 



LOOKED-FOR IS 

While I can cast a stitch or fill 
A needleful o' thread. 

God pity me, I 'd most forgot 

How many yet there be, 
Whose goodmen full as old as mine 

Are somewhere on the sea, 
Who hear the breakin' bar an' think 

O' Jerry home an' — me. 



LOOKED-FOR 

"All the apple blooms are open and the bees are in 
a flurry. 

While I walk the headland orchard, by the sail- 
beclouded sea, 

— The single sail I look for 's a long time 

a-coming — 
And a day is longer now than a summer used to be. 

" Every night I make a beacon of my little chamber 

window; 
Often at the door I listen, with my hand upon the 

key; 

— The single sail I look for 's a long time 

a-coming — 
But the sudden footstep in it hath no echo of the 
sea. 



i6 SUNSET 

*' All my baby-sewing finished, I am knitting, only 

knitting, 
For he loves to find me idle-like when coming home 

from sea; 
— The single sail I look for 's a long time 

a-coming — 
But a day without my needle is a weary one to me." 

All the apple blooms are fallen and the idle bees are 
dreaming, 

And deserted is the orchard by the sail-forsaken sea; 

The only ship she looked for is anchored in the har- 
bor. 

And a sailor sits at supper with a happy vis-d-vis. 

SUNSET 

Seldom seems a sky so bright 
As the sunset sky to-night; 
Yet it lieth far away, 
While I walk in twilight gray! 

Lo! but here a bit of tide. 
Hemmed by rock on either side, 
Gleams, and in itself content 
With a gleam yon sky hath sent. 

Bit of sky so far and bright. 
Why doth thy forgetful light, 



THRIFT 17 

While the day is leaving me, 
Think to bless that bit of sea? 

Tide, thy wall of rock about 
Cannot keep that gleam without ! 
Sky, could'st thou withhold thy mite 
From that lonely pool to-night? 

Golden sky, thou seem'st to be 
Some illumined memory; 
Bit of sea, thou seem'st some heart 
From that memory apart! 

By a bridge I cannot see 
Comes that far-off memory; 
Heart, that memory is thine! 
Heart, thy memories are mine! 



THRIFT 

My ships are blown about the world, 
From Heart's Content to iceless Ind; 

The tides play out, the winds come down, 
And perils follow tide and wind. 

When Fancy tricks me into dreams, 
I see my love in royal rooms, — 



i8 UNFULFILLED 

More than a queen when all are queens, 
And kings beside her seem like grooms. 

Meanwhile she spins her wheel indoors, 
Beginning when the days begin; 
"We shall not want," — her very words, — 
''Though never ship of thine come in." 



UNFULFILLED 

I 

Our little table is spread for two. 
With quaint old china, gold and blue; 

Weird things are wrought on the homely walls. 
As the conjuring firelight climbs and falls; 

In the corner my ready sea chest stands, 
Filled to the brim by the busiest hands ; 

Wife mirrors her face in the silver tongs; 
I think of the morrow's rude sea songs. 

"I have pictures, love," she says, "that gleam 
From a troubled easel — last night's dream: 

"A ship ashore on a cruel reef. 
And a woman wringing her hands in grief. 



UNFULFILLED 19 

" She kneels in prayer; a whirlwind wheel 
Grows out of the dead ship's plank and keel. 

*' She stands in the spinner's toiling place, 
Till the rose in her cheek hath lost its grace. 

*'Her lessening form is changed to wool, 
Yet the hungering spindle ne'er is full. 

*'A weed-grown raft keeps company 
With a vacant boat on a sailless sea." 

How apt is woman's thought to build. 
Where a varying dream may darken or gild. 



II 



Life flies; my last sea voyage is done; 
Or wind, or calm, to me 't is one. 

Tea things are set for a golden few; 
Again our china, quaint and blue; 

The conjuring home-light climbs and crawls 
O'er dainty laces and India shawls; 

Wife mirrors her face in the silver tongs; 
I think of yesterday's glad sea songs. 



20 WHO KNOWS? 

"Tell, love, I pray, of the ship on the reef, 
And the woman wringing her hands in grief; 

''Of the spinner whose white arms changed to wool. 
And the hungering spindle that ne'er grew full." 

There are tears imprisoned within her eyes. 
Which are loosened soon, as her voice replies: 

"Woman will dream, and man will build. 
And each will have prophecies unfulfilled." 



WHO KNOWS? 

The lighthouse keeper rises. 

Perchance from dreams of wreck. 

To trim his lamp, at midnight, 
Though but a tiny speck 

To some glad eye that sees it 
From some far-distant deck. 

The keeper thinks how little 
His light beyond him glows! 

And yet he trims and fills it. 
And all the while who knows 

What sailor-boy may bless it 
Who to his hammock goes? 



THE WIND'S REPLY 21 

And so I think of duty 

If it be truly done — 
A little light kept burning 

From sun to other sun — 
Who knows what heart may bless it 

And win what may be won? 



THE WIND'S REPLY 

'June hath her heart in the frolic of Summer, 
Roses declare for my bridal feast: 

Wind of the sea! do you study to gladden? 
When will my lover sail in from the East?" 

Maidens, one the sweet mate of the other. 

Every day to the sea go down, 
Hearing the Wind say over and over, 

''Weddings must wait, if ships will drown," 



INCIDENTS OF CHILD LIFE 

WHILE I MAY 

"Papa, shut the book, please; let us play together; 

I '11 be Patty Wotton in her gown o' gray, 
Mamma '11 be a lady buying all my berries, 

And you will pay in silver, — papa, what you 

sayi 



r>" 



Pages of the poets, open at your sweetest, 
You will be to-morrow what you are to-day; 

But the sunny eyes here, if I now deny them, 
When I fain would meet them may have turned 
away. 

Singing birds are song-full only in the springtime, 
Blossoms will be blossoms only for a day. 

Golden hair is golden but a little longer, 
So I '11 make your heart light, darling, while I may. 

Ever-willing Fancy, charm away the present, 
Summon all thy magic, honor-bright, in play; 

Let my little maiden, in her seventh summer, 
Be a wrinkled woman in a gown o' gray. 

22 



AN INTRUDER 23 



AN INTRUDER 

Baby has been here, it seems — 
Baby Annie, on the wing — 

In my little library, 

Plundering and reveling. 

Annie dear, the darHng witch — 
See how innocent she looks — 

But she has a world of wiles 

When she gets among my books. 

Half the time, I own, she seems 
Less a being than a star; 

Then again I cry, ''My books! 
Annie, what a rogue you are!" 

"No, no — " papa cries in vain; 

Down the dainty volumes come; 
"Papa, here you are no king, 

I am queen in babydom." 

Stately Johnson lies in grief 
Under laughing Rabelais; 

Emerson is flat for once; 
Heine 's thumbing Thackeray. 



24 HER BOUQUET 

Whittier, O poet rare ! 

Thou hast many pages less; 
But if all were gone but one, 

That would hold and charm or bless. 

Baby with the double crown, 
And the laughter-haunted eyes, 

Papa's sanctum, volume-strewn, 
Is to thee a Paradise. 

I forgive thee when I feel 
Breath and lips upon me pressed, 

Sweet as any alien air 
Blown from harbors of the blest. 

"Papa," something whispers me, 
" Better every laden shelf 
Emptied by her baby hands 
Than the house all to thyself." 



HER BOUQUET 

The summer flowers were fled, 

An autumn wind grew fretful in the eaves; 
My little daughter from the garden brought 

A couple of dead leaves. 



HER BOUQUET 25 

She called them her bouquet, 

And in her silver drinldng-cup enshrined 
No doubt they seemed to her young eyes as sweet 

As blossoms unconfined. 

I said within myself: 

"These leaves, that once in sun and silence 
played. 
Have had their day, and yet a little hand 

Exalts them, unafraid. 

"O fallen, gathered leaves, 

Ye bring again the mating of the birds. 
The wonder of the springtime, bloom and all. 

And thoughts that need no words ! 

*'Ye are my little songs; 

After the days that bred ye are gone by. 
After the Hps that sang ye sing no more. 

Come back again, and I — 

" I find ye silver-set 

By one who makes her drinking-cup thy vase. 
And ye are less to me, far less to me, 

Than smiles upon her face." 

I cannot tell her now, 
These leaves, my dear, are dead and valueless; 



26 OUT OF THE STORM 

Since her sweet thought hath chosen them and 
charmed 
Away their nothingness. 

So my dead springs become, 
By the dear art of my delighted fay, 

Warm with another Hght, a newer grace 
To me, like her bouquet. 



OUT OF THE STORM 

Papa struggles homeward through the snow, 
Bitterly waylay him wind and snow. 
But he sees, as he were there, a rosy room, 
And the faces lifted, leaning — ah! you know, 
Easy-chair and waiting slippers, gown and all - 
Bitter snowflakes now like tiny blossoms fall. 

Papa battles stoutly on and on. 
Little faces from the window disappear. 
Happy fingers lift the latch and swing the door - 
Papa's coming, papa's coming, papa's here. 
Cozy chair and on his forehead fingers warm. 
Care may wing herself away upon the storm. 

Papa shuts his eyes a minute just 

In the comfort, in the odor all so sweet. 

And he sees as from afar his Father's house 



IT SEEMS 27 

Which he neareth with the storm about his feet. 
Little eyes are peering through the narrow night, 
And a door of light is opened into light. 

Care is left behind him in the dark, 
Outer garments drops he by the door; 
Children, little children lead him in. 
He hath loved and lost them long before; 
Those eyelids then two could not kiss them down; 
Ringlets severed, dead, are grown again brook- 
brown. 

Child-like in all they strive to gladden him; 
One offers papa half her baby chair, 
Her little chair, so like a vacant one, — ■ 
That vacant one, child, was it here or there? 
Now sudden accents break his reverie — 
"Has 'ou an owange, papa dea', fo' me?" 



IT SEEMS 

We laid our little boy away 

In lily-sweet repose: 
Buried, the favor of his cheek 

Will bring the perfect rose. 

The morning with her glory on 
Comes up this wood and way; 



28 IT SEEMS 

And yet it takes the thought of him 
To make the perfect day. 

Though blossoms breathe till winds are sweet, 

And brook and birdie croon ; 
The more I think, the more it seems, 

His is the perfect June. 



COMMEMORATIVE 

ON THE LOSS OF THE ONEIDA 

America, lament, 

For thou hast need to weep, — 
An hundred of thy sailors 

Forsaken in the deep. 

No tender rites were theirs, 
Nor slow and solemn train; 

Their burial guns they thundered 
To a deaf and deathful main. 

Story and song shall tell, 

Oneida, of thy men. 
And when the story endeth, 

Song shall begin again; 

Story and song shall tell, 
And ere the song is done, 

The hearer will be eager 
To hear the tale begun. 



29 



so A DAY OF DAYS 

Rather, O land bereaved, 
Thy dead son with his name, 

Than England's living captain — 
With England's living shame, 

For there shall fill the sea. 
That saw her colors dip, 

Those final words of Williams, 
''I go down with my ship." 

Now that his words are thine, 
O Nation, do thy part : 

Let wheel and capstan wear them, 
Print them on every chart. 

Britannia, lament. 

For thou hast need to weep, — 
An hundred brother-sailors 

Left in the deathful deep. 



A DAY OF DAYS 

" One of those heavenly days that cannot die " 

How needless seems the breath of song 

I bring, this day of days. 
When everything I hear and see 

Outsings me or outsays! 



A DAY OF DAYS 31 

This homestead dear, those hills aloof, 

The leaning, listening trees. 
Your faces lit by youth or years, — 

What song can color these? 

O happy pair to whom to-day 

So many feet are led, 
Whatever words our thought may call, 

The sweetest stay unsaid; 
For when with gladness overcome 

And loving lips would speak, 
They fail, then eye must answer eye. 

And cheek enkindle cheek. 

O husband, father, brother, friend, 

And cheery grandsire, too, 
How proudly one and all we claim 

A heart-warm hand from you ! 
How glad we are to find the years 

Have left your heart so light! — 
How glad to see they took the dark 

And only left the bright ! 

O wife and mother, grandma, friend. 

And sister dear and true. 
The light that hath been his to see. 

How he hath shared with you ! 
How have the years that kept him young, 

Considered you as well! 



32 A DAY OF DAYS 

And if they 've stolen aught from you, 
To-day they do not tell. 

Though frost and winter visit some 

To hold both hope and will, 
To you they cannot seem to come, — 

A charm is on the sill : 
A charm is on the sill to throw 

A happier within, 
Where years begin in peace and grow. 

And end as they begin. 

O sons and daughters, blessing, blest. 

This golden light doth fall. 
The more than golden chain it leaves 

Will bind you, one to all. 
Though mountain-ranges stood between 

You and the homestead door. 
Your feet have passed them all to tread 

One Httle spot once more. 

This httle spot, ah! well may you 

A thousand ranges pass, 
To float the tide of childhood down, 

Or turn the new-mown grass! 
And well may you, or near or far, 

Uncounted chances miss, 
To find that father's welcome-smile, — 

To meet that mother's kiss. 



A DAY OF DAYS 33 

The absent few, though far away, 

Your love doth overlean; 
These children's children scarcely know 

The moment of this scene; 
How will remembrance of it grow 

Beneath their coming skies. 
When they have loved with woman's love. 

Or tried what manhood tries. 

O brothers, sisters, she who first 

Received your mother's kiss, 
Misses among you here to-day 

What neither of you miss: 
Your hearts go out, as hearts can go, 

Unto her widowed heart. 
And hers comes nearer yours and finds 

The love that hath no art. 

We know your thoughts half-tearful turn 

To the one vacant chair; 
If Love could make the circle full. 

That were not empty there. 
But Faith, O dear, dear friends, can fill 

What seemeth else unfilled: — 
God hath not blessed you all to-day 

To leave his soul unthrilled. 

For fifty years these two have been 
Each to the other light; 



34 VERSES 

Aye, fifty years of love and life 

Without a flaw or blight! 
O golden day, go slowly down, 

O thrifty years, come on 
And bring their children, here or there, 

Their golden wedding dawn. 



VERSES 

Read at the hundredth birthday reception oj Mrs. 
Mary H. Gilbert, September 8, 1886, Gloucester, 
Mass. 

This mansion of a woman's life 

Twice fifty Junes have dreamed upon; 

A hundred years! A hundred rooms 
From room to room go opening on — 

Go opening on from dark to bright. 

Through the long vista we behold 
Life's gleaming pictures lose their gleam; 

The hearth-light, laughing, fling its gold. 

A hundredth time September comes, 
A yearly guest who dearer grows; 

Still sits the matron here serene, 
Still on her cheek the life-light glows. 



PROCTER GATHERING 35 

The merry hostess still in state 
Here in her happy hundredth room ! 

Shut out the shadow from the shine, 
Shut in the odor and the bloom! 

Shut out the tumult of the street! 

Breathe the dear breath of song and psalm; 
For us the fortune of the sea, 

For her the harbor and the calm. 

September winds blow sweet and cool! 

September skies be clear and blue 
O'er one on whom diviner airs 

Sweep down from Heaven's diviner hue! 

Not distant lies that other shore. 
Nor faintly shine the golden sands, 

Wherefrom the Father's house is seen — 
Our Father's house not made with hands. 



LINES READ AT THE 'PROCTER 
GATHERING" 

New England hath uncertain skies; 

Her hills are hard and gray; 
But on their harps of oak the winds 

Unwritten anthems play. 



36 PROCTER GATHERING 

And woman is as true to us, 

And childhood as divine, 
And home as sacred here as where 

The summers endless shine. 

Her strength is not in titled men, 

Far less in mines of gold, — 
Count but her ever-coming keels. 

You leave the best untold; 
Her wealth is love of home, a coin 

Too pure to ring or weigh; 
Her hope the simple pride that prompts 

This gathering to-day. 

A hundred harvest scythes have swung 

Along their dewy rows, 
And Summer's golden poetry 

Hath followed Winter's prose. 
Since two stood in the altar-light, — 

We seem to see them now, — 
Her hand in his, two hearts in one. 

Vowing the olden vow. 

Upon the hearth the fire sang 
Of things the oak had heard. 

It mimicked bygone revelry 
Of woodland brook and bird; 

And all the pine had hoarded long 
Of summer-sweet perfume. 



PROCTER GATHERING 37 

The fire unreluctant loosed 
To fill the bridal-room. 

They built their home thereafter here 

Beside the singing sea, 
Where songs to-day, perhaps, are sung 

Unheard by you and me; 
They held their hearts as hearts are held, 

Through gladness and through woe, — 
For love hath many ways to keep 

What she hath set aglow. 

His busy hand and brain kept time 

To music of the mill, 
And laden vessels went and came 

To speed his spoken will. 
Her happy hand and voice attuned 

The lyric of her wheel, — 
Ay, down the avenue of years 

We hear its murmur steal. 

The blood that reddened in her cheek, 

You feel it in your veins; 
The light that lit their meeting eyes 

Yet gladdens and enchains; 
And so their dreams are dreamed again, 

The same sweet tale is told, — 
When young ears lean to favored lips, 
What if the tale be old? 



38 PROCTER GATHERING 

Through set and shine, through gleam 
and gloom, 

The circling months went by, — 
December with its muffled feet, 

April with tearful eye; 
Like us they kept some June at heart. 

Some faded, broken spray, 
Or hidden wealth of baby-hair, 

To cheer the later gray. 

The greater number of their kin 

We look upon as dead, — 
Gone as November's fallen leaves. 

Or June's sweet blossoms shed; 
But they are here perhaps, they fill 

Each seeming vacant chair; 
To bless, with hands and lips unseen. 

The feast they cannot share. 

Few human gatherings are full. 

Forecast whatever day, — 
No festival is perfect here. 

Ordain it as we may; 
Some now are absent on the land. 

And some are on the sea; 
O wind and sky, be fair to them 

As wind and sky can be! 



THE PARTING WORD 39 

We meet, an undivided throng; 

We, who have days in store, 
And they whose feet are meted not 

By any shade or shore; 
We meet with undivided hearts. 

With joy and dance and song, — 
The laughter of their wedding-day 

Let our Ups prolong. 

Bring in the viol that he played, 

Rekindle with the bow 
The mirth and music they began 

A hundred years ago; 
Fill up the heart's red cup and drink 

To all that gladdens home. 
And pledge to Honor and Good Name 

The hundred years to come. 



THE PARTING WORD 

Your words are said, your songs are sung, 

The lights grow dim and dimmer, 
The feast full high and sweet is done, 

And joy is but a glimmer. 
One word and then we turn to leave 

The banquet scene forsaken. 
Like one, who, dreaming of the day 

Doth in the dark awaken. 



4Q THE PARTING WORD 

And now you bid me take the harp, 

And trust my hapful fingers, 
To try if some one tune, perchance, 

Of all its magic lingers, — 
Some tune to bring you back again 

The past in all its glory, — 
The sunny look, the winning word, 

The undertone of story. 

Alas! that such a task should fall 

To such a hand as mine is, 
While in your hearts you hold unsung 

The song that auld lang syne is. 
But he who hath a song sometimes. 

Though difiident with others, 
May sing it by the hearth, before 

An audience of brothers. 

Delay the word, let sadness wait. 

Renew the light and laughter, 
Fill high the cup we came to drink, 

Nor fear the morning after. 
Ay, Life hath sunny days and long. 

But none too warm and tender; 
Then fill the picture of to-day 

Sweet with a sunset splendor. 

By many paths our feet have come, 
O'er river, sea, and prairie, 



THE PARTING WORD 41 

Hope's landmark glowing all the way 

With gleams that never vary. 
By winding ways our feet will go 

Back to our hearth-side pleasures, 
To broader duties, fuller lives. 

And love-illumined treasures. 

Behind yon chairs I seem to see 

Sweet forms with faces hidden ; 
All hail! we know not who are 'mong 

These guests who come unbidden, — 
Unbidden, no, no, no, they came 

Another way than ours, 
And where we saw the wayside sand. 

They gathered wayside flowers. 

The passing hour is ripe, so may 

All farewell moments find you, — 
Life's lifted cup in happy hands, 

With sainted ones to mind you. 
Now brothers, sisters, of one name, 

God bless the bread we 've broken, 
And light our now dividing paths, — 

Farewell, — it must be spoken. 

Farewell, — the word is to your hearts 

A sweet vibration bringing, 
While to your thoughts the summer sea 

A softer song is singing. 



42 DAY UNTO DAY 

Farewell ! upon our inner eye 
What sudden scenes are stealing! 

Farewell ! upon our inner ear 
What hidden bells are pealing ! 



DAY UNTO DAY 

Gloucester (including Rockport), Cape Ann, Massa- 
chusetts. 1 6 42- 1 8 g2. 

Let statue, picture, park, and hall, 
Ballad, flag, and festival, 
The past restore, the day adorn. 
And make to-morrow a new morn. 

Emerson. 
There was an island . . . and sweet single roses. 

Higginson's Journal^ zbsg. 

When ships were divers leagues distant and had not made land, 
so fragrant and odoriferous was the land to the mariners, that they 
knew they were not far from the shore. 

ScottovPs Narrative. 



"We need a town," the Ages said, 
"Beyond the willing sea, 
Wherein to grow in other air 
Our infant, liberty. 

"Though sorrow visit there the child. 
Though care may seek her door. 
Who hears her footfall once will hear 
And love it evermore. 



DAY UNTO DAY 43 

"A homespun town we need," they said, 
"With honor in the web, 
And men who dare to build and sail, 
Let fortune flow or ebb. 

*' Divide your kingdoms where you may, 
Or hold the hills in fee. 
But lay no lien on the deep, 
For all men own the sea." 



n 

O mariners, who sail in quest. 
Untroubled there, the main. 

The deep-blue deep is all your own, 
What more is there to gain? 

What more is there to wm, O ship? 

Ne'er let a chance persuade! 
Thou'rt sailing by a haven here 

As fine as God hath made. 

Why sail this harbor by? Come in I 
Some reef may be thy woe; 

For thee the land hath waited long, 
For thee the roses blow. 

The island-roses, captain bold. 
Invite thee and thy crew; 



44 DAY UNTO DAY 

Their perfume is as sweet as if 
They drank of England's dew. 

In vain, O valiant Captain Smith, 

Thy labors we invite: 
Now other hands will build the town 

And its proud records write. 



Ill 

Old England had grown roses long 
As she had grown her men: 

Ah! where were sweeter roses? Where 
Was manhood braver? When? 

Old England gave her gravest, best, — 
Who else could rear the New? 

The land was not a land forlorn 
That grew the men she grew. 



IV 

See Conant and his comrades build 
On this fair headland green ! 

Undoing all their hands have done, 
Alas! they leave the scene. 

They leave the wilderness as wild 
As ever wildness were: 



DAY UNTO DAY 45 

Who now will build the town to stay 
And wear their heart for her? 



V 

"Sweet single roses," blow your breath 
Beyond the harbor-line! 
For men are sailing on a quest 
With thoughts of home and kine. 

With thoughts of hearth and kine they come 

And cast their anchor down: 
These are the men with hope in hand 

To build your needed town. 

Lured by a rose's breath, are these 

The men to hew and fell? 
What armor of the soul they have 

To ward a witch's spell? 

They were the men to plant a town 

On this reluctant soil; 
The common weal was in their work 

As light is in the oil. 

How soon they see in ev'ry oak 

The promise of a sill ! 
Their hearth-light in the pine they see, — 

These men of sight and will. 



46 DAY UNTO DAY 

In many a boulder, too, they seek 
The coming doorstep stone; 

How sweet to hew when what is hewn 
Becomes at once one's own! 

And yet they thought it sweeter far 
To hear some brother's call, 

Then answer it and feel within, — 
One's own is not one's all. 

Saw they not more than hearth and sill 
They had no sight, alas ! — 

The Lord they saw, as men should see, - 
For men are more than grass. 

And so they builded to the Lord: 
They knew when all is known, 

Or give or keep, or sow or sing, 
One's all is not one's own. 



VI 

O single roses, sweet, that lured 
These sailing men to land, — 

These men with sight and will to see, 
With hope in either hand, — 

We thank thee for the men who threw 
Their idle anchor down. 



DAY UNTO DAY 47 

Who felt thee as a breath of home, 
Whose love begat our town. 



VII 

O fields of by-gone battle-days, 
Where hold you now her sons? — 
" 'T was here the maddest charge was made 
That ever silenced guns: 

"The day was deathful here, O God! 
The turf is sweet and dear: 
Cape Ann, the tide of battle turned. 
Thy fallen sons lie here." 

O favored field, complete thy tale! 
Was that day lost or won? 
" No day was ever lost by him 
Who fell with duty done." 

O famous field, bethink once more ! 
Was the day won or lost? 
"The doubtful day is never won 
By those who count the cost?" 

Hear, hear, old Cape, from fields renowned 
Comes home the proud reply, — 
"Thy sons make sweet the turf they trod, 
And lustrous where they lie." 



48 DAY UNTO DAY 



VIII 



Men know thy hidden grief, O Cape, 

Whose losses leave no scar: 
Thy looked-for sons who come no more, 

By the sea ennobled are. 



IX 

Ah! truant sons and daughters, now, 
What shall your province be? 

A thousand hearts are here as one, — 
Keep you the happy key! 

For you the lanes are all in bloom 
To lead where once they led; 

You seek no by-way here alone, — 
To-day there are no dead. 

Float down the golden harbor-tide 

Within the sunset glow! 
The snowy squadrons cloud the bay, - 

For you their pennons flow. 

Dream over all your dreams! Beyond 

Their hills of lavender 
Are sails that never nearer come, — 

The ships that ever were, — 



DAY UNTO DAY 49 

The dream-bound ships that seem to wait 

For something from the hills; 
The lucky wind, that knows their need, 

To-day their coming wills. 

O seaport, look ! thy craft are not 

The waiting wealth of dreams, 
For flight is in their supple sails 

And sinew in their beams. 



X 

O city dear, thy hammers find 

A purpose in the stone: 
Thy weal and woe are in the sea, — 

The sea, that mocks thy moan. 

Come woe or weal, thy women mate 

Thy well-rewarded men: 
Now, where is woman dearer? Where 

Was manhood braver? When? 



XI 

O brothers, sisters, have we built 
As He would have us build? 

Hath heart or hand been loth to turn 
From heart or hand unfilled? 



so DAY UNTO DAY 

Our fathers builded in their day 

Not for the day alone; 
Their common love the common weal, 

Day unto day hath shown. 



XII 

"0 sons of mine, thy Cape hath been 
For centuries my stay; 
Go, serve her well and love her well," — 
Let Massachusetts say! 

Aye, Massachusetts, mother dear, 

We will be all we may; — 
God keep thee, rare old Commonwealth, 

From border-line to bay ! 

August 24, 1892. 



TRANSLATIONS 

THE ANSWER 

From the German of Geibel 

Thou askest me, my maiden, 

Why sing I sorrow-laden 

My song? — thou bid'st me say. 

Delay my springtime rifled, 

I played with love and trifled, — 

I dreamed my youth away. 

The beaker came and tempted, 
It went from me unemptied, 
I let the chance go by; 
Pomegranates, grapes, invited 
And beckoned me, delighted, 
I gathered them? not I. 

A BOHEMIAN MELODY 

Ah ! know I not, indeed, 
Why thou art drawn to me; 
51 



52 BOHEMIAN MELODIES 

Ah! know I not, indeed, 
Why I am loved by thee 1 



I have no dower fine, 
Nor am I fair to see; 

Ah ! know I not, indeed, 
Why thou lovest me ! 

Thine eyes of blessed blue, 
They revel in their glee; 

Thine eyes of blessed blue 
Are ever blessing me; 

Thine eyes of blessed blue 
And thy busy hands too, • 

They tell a thousand times, 
Why I love you ! 



BOHEMIAN MELODIES 



Winds are blowing, blowing sweetly; 

To the river runs the brook; 
Maiden with the blue eyes, lovely, 

From your little window look. 



BRIDGES 53 

Nay, nay, look not from the window; 

Rather meet me at the door; 
And for every kiss you offer, 

I will give you three or four. 

II 

Say to me, my little star, 
Is it bright or sad you are? 

Art thou troubled, then be clear, 
Maiden, O, bethink thee, dear. 
'Aye, aye, now bethink I me; 
Sweet, forever love I thee." 



BRIDGES 

From the German of Geibel 

Songs are bridges golden, 
Golden, dear, to me. 

Where my love may wander, 
Happy child, to thee. 

Pinions in my dreams, dear, 
Sad or gay and light. 

To thy heart will bear me. 
Bear me every night! 



54 THE DREAM 

THE DREAM 

From the German of IJhland 

But yesterday a-dreaming 

I lay upon a steep 
That ran along the seaside; 
I looked along the lea-side 

And out upon the deep. 

A little boat was lying 

Beside the shore below; 
The boatman looked and waited 
As he were one belated, 
And gayly flags did blow. 

Now from the far-off mountain 

A merry train drew near, 
Garlands on garlands bearing 
And other garlands wearing — 
Like angels they appear. 

Before the glad procession 

The children skip and play, 
Their elders beakers swinging. 
With dancing and with singing 
They fill the happy way. 



THE FLOWER OF SUBMISSION 55 

They cry unto the boatman: 

"Delights and joys are we 
Who far away would find us, 
The earth, the earth behind us — 

Wilt take us o'er the sea?" 



Replied the boatman: "Enter." 

They hurriedly embark. 
He spake: "My loved ones, mind ye. 
Are any left behind ye, 

On hill or dale? Now hark." 

"No, we are all," they answer. 

"Up sail, up sail, and start!" 
From earth — the land-breeze follows 
I see, like homeward swallows, 

Delight and joy depart. 



THE FLOWER OF SUBMISSION 

From the German 0} Eichendorf 

I 'm a flower in a garden 

Waiting, waiting quietly 
For the moment and the manner 

When and how Thou 'It come to me. 



S6 IN A GARDEN 

Comest Thou a gleam of sunshine 
Thou wilt fill me with delight, 

To Thy bosom I '11 unfold me 
And I '11 keep Thy glances bright. 

Comest Thou as dew or raindrop, 
Blessing as Thou can'st but bless. 

Love's own chalice shall contain Thee, 
And shall never find Thee less. 

And if Thou should'st o'er me hover 
In the wind I would incline, 

Lowly, lovingly, surrender. 
Saying, ''I am only Thine." 

I'm a flower in a garden 

Waiting, waiting quietly 
For the moment and the manner 

When and how Thou 'It come to me. 



IN A GARDEN 

Yonder in a queen's court-garden 
Blooms a little rosebud rare; 

Two nights long the dew hath sprinkled. 
Sprinkled little rosebud there. 



IN AUTUMN 57 

Yonder in a queen's court-garden 

By the little rosebud rare, 
Night long wept my little darling — 

Wept my true-love — sweet and fair. 

Yonder in a queen's court-garden 

Sigh'd we over bygone bliss; 
By the little blooming rosebud 

Kiss'd we, ah! the parting kiss. 



IN AUTUMN 

From the German of Geihel 

Oh! were it only cheeks that lose 

Their color with the years! 
But ah! it makes me sad to think 

How heart-bloom disappears, — 

How vanishes the fame of youth, 
Whose glance in sorrow sets; — 

The breast that once was hot with love, 
How it hath loved forgets. 

And though with wit and banter, too, 

The daring lip o'erfiows, 
'T is only a dissembling green 

That in the grave-grass grows. 



58 THE LYING BIRD 

Night comes and sorrow comes with night, 

But fitful gleams awake; 
Our hearts that long in vain for tears 

May long until they break. 

Why are we weary and so poor, 
Who knows? we feel but this, 

Bloom after bloom the heart lets fall, 
A dream is every bliss. 



THE LYING BIRD 

Why prates the little bird there 
Upon the bough above? 
" That one who loves a maiden 
Grows pale for very love." 

Now, little bird, thou liest — 
Thy talk is full of lies; 

For look, I love a maiden. 
And crimson to the eyes. 

Wait, bird, and while thou liest, 
I '11 softly creep around, — 

I '11 draw my truest arrow 
And shoot thee to the ground. 



A MORAVIAN MELODY 59 



MIST 

GLOOMY mist, conceal from me 
The valley and the stream, — 

The mountain and its hunting wood 
And every sunny gleam. 

take away in thy gray night. 
In length and breadth, the earth; 

And take away withal the past 
That gives my sorrow birth! 



A MORAVIAN MELODY 

What is that a-sighing? 

Hark! what can it be? 
Is it bells a-ringing — 

Or the maple tree? 

'T is n't bells a-ringing, 
Nor the maple leaves; 

'T is a lover going. 
And a maiden grieves. 



6o ONE OUT OF MANY 

THE OCEAN OF HOPE 

From the German of Ruckert 

Though hope upon hope is rent in twain, 
The heart hopes over and over again; 
As wave upon wave breaks, breaks on the shore, 
But the sea it hath more, and more, and more. 

For the wave to rise and the wave to fall 
Is the life of the sea, — its all in all; 
And the hopes of the heart from day to day 
Are only the waves of the heart at play. 

As the foam of the sea goes towards the skies, 
So ever the dreams of the heart arise; 
And e'en as a dream from a dream evolves. 
So the spray of the sea into spray resolves. 

ONE OUT OF MANY 

Oh kiss me not with a hundred kisses, 

I pray thee, I pray thee: — 
Make one kiss out of a hundred kisses, 

Then kiss me, oh ! kiss me ! 



ON THE LAKE 6i 

ON THE LAKE 

From Goethe 

I DRA.W fresh nutriment, new blood, 

From out the open air; 
How lovely nature is and good 

Who holds me to her bosom fair! 

The waves they rock our little boat 

To the oars' time along; 
And mountains meet us where we float 

Their heads the clouds among. 

Eyes, mine eyes, why are ye drooping? 
Golden dreams again come trooping; 
Golden as thou art, away! 
Love and Life are here to-day. 

The stars, a thousand thousand, 

Upon the waves are blinking. 
And all the rounded offing 

The tender mist is drinking. 

The morning wind is winging 

About the shadowed bay, 
And in the lake be-mirrored. 

The rip'ning fruit doth play. 



62 REARED IN A ROOM 



REARED IN A ROOM 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red. 
Blooming in the window here, 

Looking out upon the sea, 

With no other rosebud near — 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare, 
How doth Hfe appear to thee? 

Sunshine on the hearth within, 
And without the winter sea. 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red, 
With no sister bud to bloom, 

All thy glory thou hast won 
From the summer in my room. 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare. 
All the summer thou hast seen, 

Love hath made for two or three. 
Other summers there have been; 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red. 
Summers that have come and gone, 

When the roses filled the night, 
And a rose was in the dawn. 



REARED IN A ROOM 6$ 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare, 

'T is a loss to thee, I know. 
Never birds of June to hear. 

Nor to feel its breezes blow. 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red, 

Am I like thee? in a word. 
Are there fuller skies than mine? 

Sweeter songs than I have heard? 

"Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare," 
Something whispers thee, no doubt; 

" There are fairer rooms within. 
There are finer seas without." 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red, 
Thou dost answer, seemingly: 
" I will be a rose no less 

For the sake of two or three." 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare, 

Other roses, too, have fed 
From the love-light in my room, 

In my room, and they are dead. 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red. 
Thou dost fill my soul with doubt, 

When I see thee growing there 
And the winter white without. 



64 REARED IN A ROOM 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare, 
What if thou art not a rose? 

But a being in that guise 
Winning light and bloom from those. 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red. 
Those who in my life are more 

Than the world of roses reared 
Since the stake of Zillah bore. 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare. 
All my doubt of thee is gone; 

Thou art sweet as baby lips 
That a smile hath crept upon. 

Rosebud, rosebud, rare and red. 
Thou wilt bloom as one before; 

Then the babe will creep and eat 
Fallen roseleaves from the floor. 

Rosebud, rosebud, red and rare. 

Reappearing at the pane. 
In her breath and on her cheek 

Thou wilt breathe and bloom again. 



ROSE AND THORN 65 



ROSE AND THORN 

From the German of Riickert 

As long ago in the April wind, 

With thee, my child, a wreath I twined. 

How did I divide it? Say! 
The thorn for me 
And the rose for thee, — 
I divided it fatherly. 

And as thou, my child, left me behind, 
And fled away in the winter wind, — 

How hast thou divided? Say! 
The rose for thee 
And the thorn for me, — 
Thou dividedst undaughterly. 

As now again in the springtime here, 
For thee my wreath I twine, my dear, — 

How shall I divide it? Say ! 
The thorn for me 
And the rose for thee, — 
So we will share eternally. 



66 SPRING 



A SLAVONIC MELODY 

It my little maid to-night 
Comes across the heather, 

It will mean the sun and moon 
Coming up together. 

Ah! my little maiden dear 
Comes not o'er the heather; 

Silver moon and golden sun, 
Come not now together. 



SPRING 

From the German of Lenau 

The trees are all blooming, 
The little birds sing; 

And out in the meadow 
The grasses up-spring. 

It grieves me while treading 

The earth as I do, 
To think I endanger 

Her garment so new. 



TO ONE AT A DISTANCE 67 

Ah! she though is careless 

If opening bloom 
Or song of the springtime 

Doth veil me in gloom. 



TO ONE AT A DISTANCE 

Here I pluck a rosebud sweet, 

On my journey going, 
Which I fain would bring to thee, 

Maiden mine, while blowing. 

Ah! the barrier of miles — 

'T is too many thither; 
Roses in a hurry bloom, 

And my rose would wither. 

Love from love should never go, 
Life to dullness dooming, 

Farther than a rose in hand 
Can be carried blooming; 

Farther than the nightingale 
Brings her building grasses; 

Farther than her sweetest song 
In an echo passes. 



68 TO THE ABSENT 

TO THE ABSENT 

From the Swedish of Tegner 

How happy the days were! Where, Nanna, art 

thou? 
And where is the gladness I'm longing for now? 
A lovely companion in life had I then, 
Whom sadly and lonesome I pine for again. 

I enter thy chamber; how empty and lone! 

A temple forsaken, a goddess's own! 

There 's not a dear place where thy footsteps have 

been 
But wakens remembrance so happy and keen. 

I go to thy mirror and seek for thee there; 
But thee it forgets and thine image so fair. 
And now for thy picture to soothe me I come; 
It hears not a word that I say, and is dumb. 

A pilgrim I wander and seek but for thee; 
I sit on the stone where thou sattest with me. 
I sit and I Hsten and listen; but all 
That I hear is the wind and the brook in its fall. 

I go to thy garden and fondle the flowers 
That harbored thy fancies in earlier hours; 



TO THE WIND 69 

They lean in their sorrow, those delicate blooms, 
And the longing I suffer their beauty consumes. 



I walk in the woods. Like a friend is each tree. 
Where my name in the bark was once lettered by 

thee. 
I take the light boat and row off to thine isle, 
And the wind and the wave whisper ''Nanna" the 

while. 

Come heart to my heart, 't is thy birthday to-day! 
My life joy lies sealed in a letter away; 
But the seal shall be broken in less than a year. 
And the bride will be wife to me happy and dear! 



TO THE WIND 

I WANDER to another land; 

Once more I look behind to see 
The last fond beckon of her hand. 

To hear her farewell word to me. 

She calls to me that kindly word. 
To cheer me through my troubled stay, 

But not the lightest tone is heard — 
The wind hath carried it away. 



70 TO THE WIND 

'T is not enough that I must break 
Away from joy and say farewell; 

But thou, rude, bitter wind must make 
Her parting word inaudible. 



IN THE SEA 



IN THE SEA 

The salt wind blows upon my cheek, 

As it blew a year ago, 
When twenty boats were crushed among 

The rocks of Norman's Woe. 
'T was dark then; 't is light now, 

And the sails are leaning low. 

In dreams, I pull the seaweed o'er, 

And find a face not his. 
And hope another tide will be 

More pitying than this: 
The wind turns, the tide turns, — 

They take what hope there is. 

My life goes on as thine would go. 
With all its sweetness spilled; 

My God, why should one heart of two 
Beat on, when one is stilled? 

Through heart-wreck, or home-wreck, 
Thy happy sparrows build. 
71 



72 BLOWN OFF 

Though boats go down, men build anew, 

Whatever winds may blow; 
If bhght be in the wheat one year, 

We trust again and sow, 
Though grief comes, and changes 

The sunshine into snow. 

Some have their dead, where, sweet and soon, 

The summers bloom and go; 
The sea withholds my dead, — I walk 

The bar when tides are low. 
And wonder the grave-grass 

Can have the heart to grow! 

Flow on, O unconsenting sea. 

And keep my dead below; 
Though night — O utter night ! — my soul, 

Delude thee long, I know. 
Or Life comes or Death comes, 

God leads the eternal flow. 



BLOWN OFF 

I SEE my favored sisters ride. 
Clasped in the lucent harbor tide. 
The yachts, our lilies of the sea. 
Fold their white petals dreamily. 



BLOWN OFF 73 

The pilot watches from the hill 
For all, the wind doth have its will. 

My owner in the secret mart 

Persuades — a master of the art — 

Parcels my cargo, hidden here: 

No largess of the tropic year. 

No little worlds-of-goodness grapes 

Plucked from the laps of dimpled capes. 

Nor wines to molten light akin 

With sleeping goblins leashed therein, 

But living chattels dull as death, 

A perishable lot, a breath 

The difference 'twixt gain and loss 

That makes the captain dream and toss; 

Oh, buyers, vain your bids will be. 

For I, the ship, am blown to sea. 

I hear the sailors tell their tales 

Of idle ships and folded sails 

And fairer lands that leeward lie, 

Where human dream and effort die; 

Of seas that print the meanest thing, 

Beyond the sea's imagining. 

Where ships are never overdue. 

Nor midnight summons stir the crew; 

Where all the bays are siren-isled, 

And care and chance are dream-beguiled. 



74 BLOWN OFF 

All this to wile the time, for we 
Are blown to sea, blown out to sea. 



And still they hold me with their tales 

Of happy pennons over sails 

Dipped in a crystal wine of dew 

To keep their lustre ever new, 

As 't were to hold their valor, too; 

Of tarry hands upon the helm, 

The single deck a prouder realm 

Than ever monarch battled for 

In the old days of war on war. 

But I would rather wear to-day 

My wind-worn pennon, grave and gray, 

Than that of admiral or king. 

In finer fabric glorying 

To lift the fighter out of fear. 

But I would rather touch my pier, 

Have school-boys climbing shrouds and stays 

To learn the wonders of my ways, 

The happy sweethearts coming down 

To kiss my sailors salt and brown. 

Than be the favored craft that smiles 

Allegiance to enchanted isles 

Where need is hinted nevermore 

Of sudden sail or eager oar. 

But ah! the choice is not for me. 

Blown out to sea and out to sea. 



COAST-WISE 75 

The tales are told, the lips are still, 
The pilot lies beneath the hill. 
Along the way I beat and beat; 
The ropes have rotted from the cleat, 
My sails to shadows now have grown, 
E'en hope hath from the anchor flown. 
The hand upon my helm is dead, 
The winds that wasted it have fled. 
The chart is all the while outspread, 
But all its currents, shoals, and capes 
Can never warn the ebon shapes 
That all about the capstan sit, 
On cable tier or windlass bit. 

A hundred harvests now have grown 
Since from the harbor I was blown; 
The books are shut that knew my name. 
Forgot the owner and his shame; 
Men's minds are full of other ships; 
My name is never on their lips, 
Nor woman's hope doth summon me. 
An outcast thing of misery 
Blown out to sea, blown out to sea. 



COAST-WISE 

Running the chances of shoal and of siren. 
Glare o' the city and glimmer of town. 



76 COAST-WISE 

Mariners we with our hearts in the offing, 
Sailing the bay up and sailing it down. 
Coast-wise and coast-wise, the harbor-lights greet, 
Down o' the thistle and glimpses of wheat. 



Mariners gray in the service of Traffic, 

Often to venture and rarely to win; 
Ever instead of the coveted sea-room 

Something to weather the tide setting in. 
Coast-wise and coast-wise, the luck o' the lee. 
And the breath o' the woodland; but servitors we. 



Not for our keel are the seas we would enter; 

Not for our deck their illumining spray; 
Not for our sails are the touch o' their sunsets. 

Oh! for our shallops the wings o' the day! 
Coast-wise and coast-wise, the beacon lights clear, 
Only to sail the same provinces near ! 



Nightly in dreams do the sirens delude us. 
Blowing us winds that by daylight are gone; 

Ever away in the offing are looming. 
Continents pink with continual dawn. 

Coast-wise and coast-wise, the inlets of song 

And the seas, to the singers to whom they belong. 



THE FISHERMEN 77 



THE FISHERMEN 



Three hardy young toilers over a net 

Are slipping the fish out, one by one; 
Unheeded comes the sweet breath of the land, 

And the silent touch of the sun. 
Mad winds grow madder to-night, and shake 

With a tempest their boat on the sea, 
You cannot awake from their happy dreams 

These happier fishers, three. 



II 

Three idle old fishermen sit to-day 

On a bench beneath the storehouse eaves; 
One tells of a bridal, and one of a wreck — 

One says, "How the east wind grieves!" 
Ah! tenderly tidings go out 

To the boats that have hidden their wings, 
And a tenderer echo comes back 

In the songs that the fisher-boy sings. 
For the fishermen, idle and old. 

Have told their last grief in the sun, 
And other hands will quietly do 

The little theirs left undone. 



78 A NIGHT'S PERIL 



III 



Three briery graves above a beach 

Allure the pitying kiss of the morn ; 
For the dead grass there doth miss the green 

That is caught by the conscious corn. 
Do their tenants answer the undertones 

Of the sea there, questioning night and day? 
Do they take any thought for the laden nets, 

Or the buffeting boats in the bay? 



MISLED 

Sweet Life, at morn thou dreamest 

That sunlit sail at sea 
Is sailing to thy harbor, 

For love, for love of thee. 

Dear Life, at eve thou fearest 

That sunlit sail at sea 
Is thy far youth there hailing, 

"Good-bye, good-bye" to thee. 



A NIGHT'S PERIL 

Take the tiller, laddie, meet her, 
Keep her steady as we go, 



A NIGHT'S PERIL 79 

If we make the light we 're lucky, 
With the air so thick o' snow. 



Oh! your mother's wont to waiting 
When a wind comes up like this — 

But a sweetheart, steady, laddie, 
When a boat has gone amiss — 

I have seen a maiden wither 

Like a rosebud in the heat. 
When the lad she looked for, . . . laddie, 

God Almighty, keep your feet ! 

Let me take the tiller, Ronald, 
You have not my hold, my son; 

Ha! my boat she keeps her heart up, 
She and I are almost one. 

We have weathered all we tried to, 
But the winds have shook us some; 

We are old and sea- worn, maybe, 
And belike our time has come! 

But your mother — boy, a hand here! 

Lord, was that Salvages roar? 
There's a light — the anchor, laddie, 

Here's the little cove once more! 



8o ONE PORT ALONE 

ON THE BRINK 

Renew your travail, ocean waves! 

The winds are cruel, they insist; 
They break your hearts along the reef, 

And leave you when they list: 
You sink into the sea again, 
I wonder does it still your pain ! 

My heart is in a tempest, too, 
Without an offing or a lee; 

A moment and itself could still 
Its tumult in the sea: 

I wonder, though, let all be weighed — 

I wonder would its pain be stayed ! 



ONE PORT ALONE 

O Lord, to let Thy darkness down 
Between a heart and heart! 

To let Thy favor come so near 
And promise, then depart ! 

It seems our hope is never free 
From harrowing eclipse; 

What bitter chances envy us 
The cup before our lips ! 



THE RESTLESS Si 

There seem so many ways to lose, 

So very few to keep; 
We wonder how we dare to sow, 

Or sowing rise to reap. 

The sea-worn weary mariner. 

To whom all ports are known, 
Goes by them all to make but one, 

For that one is his own. 

Now like the mariner, O Lord, 

We pass all havens by. 
All but the haven of Thy love; 

Thou knowest, Father, why? 



THE RESTLESS 

A SEA-BORN captain came, 

A constant winter in his beard; 

None knew what skies had harbored him, 
What shoals his heart had cleared. 

He looked a very king; 

You might have set him on a throne. 
And king to king would nod and swear, 

*' He is bone of our bone." 



82 THE RESTLESS 

"I need a ship," he said; 

"Not a crank jade to start and cringe, 
Though tempests unreluctant strike. 
And the quick lightnings singe; — 

A cHpper, class A i ; 

Not for your tricky cotton bales. 
But one to make my purpose hers, 

With seldom idle sails." 

The eager shipwrights eyed 
A mighty oak, the sea-mark there. 

And felled it; with unuttered fear, 
They laid its gray heart bare. 

One withered bough had borne 
A woman; hoary elders said 

Her art had turned to seeming stone 
Their sacramental bread. 

The gaunt oak shrank beneath 
The snap of ever-angry steel; 

In every thought the witch's curse, 
They hewed a lusty keel. 

And often while they built, 
A phantom navy held the coast; 

It stayed the labor-prompted song. 
The master's ready boast. 



THE RESTLESS 83 

And in an under breath 

'T was said that other workmen wrought 
At night, beneath the captain's eye, 

With clearer will and thought. 

As one before a loom, 

Of every touch secure and proud. 
Sees not the shadow. Fate, who weaves 

Or wedding-robe or shroud; 

So the chief builder stood 
Before his handiwork; he knew 

'T is ill when hidden hammers fall 
And silent axes hew. 

The troubled builder built. 

The captain queried left and right; 

The ship, apparelled now, bird-Uke, 
Shook in her dreams of flight. 

To meet the sea's desire, 

She fled one wild November day, 

And after her the spectral fleet 
Ran down the shuddering bay. 

Each year the four winds brought 

A fisherman from Labrador, 
A merchantman from tropic seas, 

Or sullen man-of-war. 



84 THE RESTLESS 

And each sea-record said: — 
"A sail went flying by to-night, 

With not a breath of wind, and left 
A wake of branching Hght. 

"We caught the hurried words, 
' Report the Restless at St. Ann, 
Report the Restless anywhere,' 
The final order ran." 

Men slowly came to know 

The doom her tired pennons trailed, 

While second childhood crooned this curse, 
Upon the oak entailed: — 

" Who builds it in a ship 

May only look for her return 
When tides refuse to go and come, 
And stars forget to burn. 

"Though she may long for land. 
And grope for it with weary keel, 
No harbor-light shall comfort her. 
With my will at the wheel." 



A SAILOR'S DITTY 85 

A SAILOR'S DITTY 

Ho ! the wind is coming up and the wind is blowing 

by, 

And the sky is clear of cloud as a loving woman's 
eye, 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty! 

There is land upon the lee an' a light upon the 

land. 
An' a kettle all a-singin' an' the welcome of a hand, 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty! 

Ho ! the sea is full of light as the ship is full of 

joy, 

We can toss the anchor over as a baby would a toy. 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty ! 

Men, they parcel out the land into little acre lots; 
For an inch of it they quarrel then, till one or other 
rots, 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty! 

But the sea is any sailor's who has under him a 

keel, 
An' a king he is upon it when his hand is on the 

wheel, 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty! 



86 THE SKIPPER HERMIT 

Ho ! the land is well enough for the women an' the 

sheep, 
An' to keep the keels a-growing till they hanker for 

the deep, 
An' a heave-ho, my hearty! 

But for men of sight and sinew there 's nothing like 

the sea. 
An' the little woman thinks it who is looking now 

for me, 
An' a farewell, my hearty ! 



THE SKIPPER HERMIT 

For thirty year, come herrin'-time, 

Through many kind o' weather, 
The Wren an' me have come an' gone, 

An' held our own together. 
Do' know as she 's as good as new, 

Do' know as I am, nuther; 
But she is truer 'n kit' an' kin. 

Or any but a mother. 

They 're at me now to stay ashore; 

But while we 've hand an' tiller, 
She '11 stick to me an' I to her, — 

To leave the Wren would kill her. 



THE SKIPPER HERMIT 87 

My feet have worn the deck; ye see 
How watches leave their traces, 

An' write on oak an' pine as plain 
As winters on our faces! 

But arter all is said an' done, 

There 's somethin' sort o' human 
About a boat that takes at last 

The place of child and woman ; 
An' yet when I have seen some things — 

Their mothers let me toss 'em — 
My boat, she seemed a barnacle 

'Longside a bran new blossom. 

Sometimes to me the breeze off-shore 

Comes out upon the water. 
As if it left the grave of her — 

No wife to me, nor daughter. 
Lor' ! if I knowed where green or no 

The turf is sweet above her, 
I 'd buy a bit o' ground there, — wide 

As a gull's wings would cover. 

We know the tricks of wind an' tide 

That mean an' make disaster, 
An' balk 'em, too — the Wren an' me — 

Off on the 01' Man's Pastur'. 
Day out an' in, the blackfish there 

Go wabblin' out an' under. 



88 THE SKIPPER HERMIT 

An' nights we watch the coasters creep 
From light to light in yonder. 

An' then ag'in we lay an' lay 

Off Wonson's Cove, or Oakes's — 
None go by our compass-light, 

Nor we by other folks's. 
Ashore, the ball-room winders shine 

Till weary feet are warnin'. 
But here an' there 's a sick-room light 

That winks away till mornin'. 

An' Sundays we go nigher in, 

To hear the bells a-ringin', — 
I ain't no hand for sermons, you. 

But singin' 's allers singin'. 
The weathercocks — no two agree — 

Like men they arg' an' differ. 
While in the cuddy-way I set 

An' take my pipe, an' whiff her. 

My pipe — eh! p'ison? mighty s-l-o-w; 

It makes my dreamin' clearer, 
Though what I fill it with now-days 

Is growin' dearer 'n' dearer. 
I take my comfort when it comes, 

Then no lee-lurch can spill it. 
An' if my net is empty, Lor' ! 

Why, how can growlin' fill it? 



YOUR BARK AND MINE 89 

An' so we jog the hours away, 

The gulls they coo an' tattle, 
Till on the hills the sundown red 

Starts up the drowsin' cattle. 
The seiners row their jiggers by, 

I pull the slide half over, 
An' shet the shore out, an' the smeU 

Of seaweed sweeter 'n clover. 



YOUR BARK AND MINE 

Perhaps you saw my only bark. 
As up the inner bay she came. 

And, by her phosphorescent wake. 
Read and re-read her jeweled name. 

How silently she touched the pier. 

Nor sorrowed that her voyage was done. 

You heard the sea-songs of the crew — 
I can repeat them every one. 

Cradled in danger she hath been — 
Once shaken by a mad typhoon ; 

Twice pierced by shot from pirate guns 
In the dead life of tropic noon. 

Yet brings she spices and perfumes. 

And curious things from Orient ports — 



90 YOUR BARK AND MINE 

Wine — ye gods may drink that wine, not I — 
These robes were wrought for royal courts. 

Aye, she is Fortune's petted child, 

Else tales too fabulous are told; 
To-day I heard the sailors tell 

How spray that touched her turned to gold! 

Who places hand upon her helm 

May idly wait with wrinkled sails — 

Or, if he purpose, tempt her flight 
With storm and sea-provoking gales. 

One sunset hour her keel may kiss 
The classic waves of the Levant; 

Another, and her anchor cleaves 
These dimpled waters off Nahant. 

Seldom her wings are folded quite — 
A breath of perfume bids her roam: 

Why should I fear? Where'er she sails, 
A chime of bells will bring her home. 

You have a bark — like, unlike mine: 

Last night with precious freight she came; 

We stood upon the pier and hailed — 
*'Th' Imagination?" "Aye, the same." 



AN AFTERGLOW 91 



AN AFTERGLOW 

I WATCH the setting sunlight 
On vessel, roof, and hill; 

Where will it latest linger? 
Whose heart the latest fill? 

Fain, fain would I go over 
The threshold of that heart, 

And be a guest within it 
To feel the day depart. 

The sunlight leaves the harbor, 
The masts no more are gold, 

And yonder hilltop cottage 
Looks mean again and old. 

The day has left us, darling. 
As other days have not, 

The treasures of the morning — 
A love-abiding lot. 

The light hath left our window, 

But look away a-sea: 
A single sail is golden 

With sunset, one of three. 



92 AN AFTERGLOW 

It is the day there kissing 
Again to us "good-bye." 

O sailor-boy and sailor, 
With you the day doth die. 

sailor-boy and sailor, 

But for that sudden gleam 
You would have seemed no dearer 
Than other sailors seem; 

But since the day hath singled 
Your sail from all at sea 

1 long to tell you, brothers, 
What the day hath been to me. 

O sailor-boy, O sailor, 

Make all the sail you may. 

And bring again the day back 
To be again a day. 

You cannot bring the day back, 
Whatever light you bring. 

But other days will kiss you 
While other singers sing. 



AFTER ALL 93 

AFTER ALL 

O SHIPS that in Life's offing fail 
To win the port with eager sail, 
Baffled and beaten, nothing gained 
Though every spar is overstrained; 
While there are fibres of the mast 
That are not conscious of the blast, 
While there are sinews of the sail 
That seem the truer for the gale, 
Keep to the helm, not doubting yet, — ■ 
Though hopes may rise and burn and set, — 
The harbor-light shall comfort thee, 
Borne on a storm-forsaken sea! 



MISCELLANEOUS 

"AMONG THE HILLS" 

My eyes beheld the favored hills 
And saw them as he sung them, 

Yea, more, O summer day, they met 
The poet dear among them ! 

Sweet bells of song, I heard them chime, 
And touched the hand that swung them. 

And though to-day upon those hills 
The winter clouds are snowing. 

Beneath, within their heart of hearts, 
The rills go on, not knowing; 

So may our singer's songs flow on, 
Whatever winds are blowing. 



ARBUTUSING 

Ten springs have come and sung and gone, 
In shadow half and half aglow, 

Since two together sought the shy 
Arbutus blooms at Norman's Woe. 
94 



BEFORE AND AFTER 95 

I mind me that their fingers met 
About a bud of pink and snow; 

I wonder are there any now, — 
Arbutus blooms at Norman's Woe. 

I dine with her; 't is May-day, too; 

Her children's cheeks are sweet, I know, 
For in their pink and white I see — 

Arbutus blooms at Norman's Woe. 

Her children; hers and mine, I mean, 
For we were wedded Junes ago; 

But somehow now we never seek 
Arbutus blooms at Norman's Woe. 



BEFORE AND AFTER 



Over the blue of the river. 

Over the barren bay, 
Over the empty islands 

Cloudland reaches away. 

Magical hues on the mountains 
Flower and deepen and wane, 

And ships come out of their harbors 
That never go in again; 



96 BEFORE AND AFTER 

And the gates of the looming cities 

Open, invite, and close, 
While over the walls and through them 

Blows every wind that blows. 

Cloudland, mutable cloudland, 

Lying so fair and low. 
Over to thee by daylight 

My feet in fancy go; 

And I seem to roam thy cities. 
Through many a peopled street, 

But never to me familiar 
Is a face of all I meet; 

Never a window lifted. 

Never a laugh to cheer, 
Never a hand to beckon, 

Never a song I hear. 

II 

Baby and I in the garden 
Gathered the sweets of May; 

Out of the cloudland something 
Beckoned the boy away. 



BEFORE AND AFTER 97 



III 

Cloudland, magical cloudland, 
Lying so near and low, 

Over to thee by dream-light 
My feet unguided go; 

And a little hand doth lead me 
Through many a happy street, 

And ever to me familiar 
Are the faces all and sweet. 

Out of the open casements 

Many a song I hear, 
Every hand doth beckon, 

Every sight doth cheer; 

City and sea and mountain, 
Dear as the day to me, 

Are full of a dearer meaning 
And a deeper melody. 

Over thee, love and labor. 
Over the thrall of the day, 

Over us, darling, cloudland 
Is n't so far away. 



98 BESET 

A BENISON 

The wind and I, we drowse and dream, 

Careless of opportunities; 
The mower takes his nooning near, — 

Thank God my days are not like his. 

BESET 

How gently and often I tell them, 
Thoughts that beset me and throng, 

You are not meet for a poem 
And you are too light for a song! 

For all, they intrude and they trifle. 
Thick as the things in a ray; 

They climb their invisible ladders. 
Climb and then kick them away. 

In vain do I thrust and deny them. 
They enter and rummage the house; 

They open my skeleton-closet 
And cry to his worship, — "Heraus!" 

Wife gives me her morning injunctions, - 
"Send turnips, potatoes, and greens!" 



BESET 99 

I give to the grocer an order 

For "olives and wine and sardines"! 



I make the same mess at the market; 
"Remember, love, spinach and tripe!" 
"Tripe, tripe," I go singing, "and spare-rib"; 
But home I send salmon and snipe. 

I take my old skiff there and paddle 

Or drift on the dreamiest tide. 
When out of the sea in a moment 

A mermaid comes over the side. 

'T is pleasant to read about mermaids, 
How deftly they handle the comb; 

But here on the thwart right before one, 
One's wife knitting tidies at home! 

One would n't much fret at the caller, 
A summer delicious might pass; 

But the knitter alert at the window 
Is gauging her opera-glass ! 

Oh ! is there not handy a planet 

Where things are all perfect and square. 

Where mermaids won't sit on a gunwale 
And snicker at glasses that stare? 



loo BEYOND THE BOOK 

You see how the fancies beset me; 

In vain do I thrust and defy; 
They dimb their invisible ladders 

And — these are the things that I shy. 



BEYOND THE BOOK 

I READ a soul-sad poem 
In a foreign singer's book, 

And then above the mantel 
Upon his portrait look. 

Again I read it over; 

The poem fairly cries 
Now I have seen the sorrow 

Within the poet's eyes. 

I read a merry Liedlein 

Upon another leaf, 
Where singing birds are gathered 

Like sea-birds on a reef. 

Again I pause up-looking, 
The poet's lips are dumb, 

But full of merry mischief, — 
How droll the words become! 



BEYOND THE BOOK loi 

O singer sweet, thy Lieder 

Are alien to my ear; 
It may be half their meaning 

Eludes me looking here, 

But seeing there thy picture 
The brooding words take wings; 

What now was dim and silent 
Breaks into light and sings. 

Though tongues and seas withheld us 
My heart on thine hath lain, 

For sorrow hath one language 
And song but one domain. 

picture full of changes, 

book of blue and gold, 
You throw a thrall upon me, 

You lead me with a hold, 

As you would fain interpret 

The uninterpreted, — 
As you would have me captive 

Unto the singer led. 

1 change with all your changes, 

1 would not break your hold; 
Yet with a thrall inthrall me, 

O volume, gold in gold! 



102 A BOOK-LOVER TO HIS BOOKS 

And as you long to, lead me 
Unto the singer dead; 

Then leave me to interpret 
The uninterpreted. 



A BOOK-LOVER TO HIS BOOKS 

In goodly rows ye rise before me, 

In sunny silence shelf o'er shelf; 
Imagination hides within ye 

And Fancy, too, his brother elf. 

The thread that holds ye here is slender; 

A little while and then 't will break, 
Unless some hand shall keep it firmer 

A little longer for my sake. 

Just for my sake a little longer, — 
The thought is sweet, — one may arrange 

And keep ye here, '' because he loved them," 
From the quick hands of chance and change. 

Though long for love, Love may delay it. 
Some other haunt will call ye "mine," — 

Another owner stand before ye 
And drink, as I, your sunny wine. 



BREAD AND SONG 103 

Now promise me, my precious volumes — 
I ask but this when that shall be — 

Awake in him, the coming owner. 
The love ye yet awake in me. 



BREAD AND SONG 

We think the spring dela3dng long, 
O'er winter's lingering breath we fret; 

From boughs unblooming comes a song. 
One heart has faith in May- time yet: 

For whom thy song, O birdie sweet? 
*'I sing for him whose bread I eat." 

The minstrel who in olden days 
Went wandering from hall to hall 

Heard from proud lips warm words of praise. 
Felt Beauty's glances warmer thrall. 

For whom thy song, O minstrel sweet? 
"I sing for him whose bread I eat." 

No need of wallet then or scrip 

The singer felt, anear the gate; 
The songs that over-ran his lip 

Were golden keys to palace plate. 
For whom, O minstrel, songs so sweet? 

"I sing for him whose bread I eat." 



104 BROOK-LIFE 

Those days are dead; in many a hall 
The shadows after moonlight creep 

Along the floor and through the wall, 
Unseen by eyes that laugh or weep. 

And still those broken walls repeat, 
"I sing for him whose bread I eat." 

Those echoes. Lord, awake in me 
Responses that have slept too long; 

My bread hath daily come from Thee, 
Too seldom hath returned my song. 

Now may my heart in song repeat 
"I sing for Him whose bread I eat." 



BROOK-LIFE 

Two brooks go down the mountain-side 
In song and silence love-allied. 

And every peril of their way 
Provokes a rippling roundelay. 

One sees the gentler morning break 
On the young lilies in the lake, 

And says, "How sweet to lie among 
The lilies, there to sing a song!" 



BUILDING 105 

The lake she reaches by-and-by, 
Sweet listeners about her lie, 

But now she has no song to sing; 
Her song was born by wandering. — 

The other sees the morning break. 
Upon the sea, on sail and wake. 

And says, "How sweet a thing to be 
A singer on the listening sea!" 

And so the brook slips down and down 
From brown to gold, from gold to brown. 

Within a furlong of the sea 

The sand drinks down the brook a-glee. — 

Now who would sing a song at all 
Must let it by the wayside fall. 

Nor look for any listeners 

If his own life it Hfts and stirs. 



BUILDING 

Up and down the tenders go, 
Light and laden, young and gray; 

Only this their labor brings — 
Clay to sand, or sand to clay. 



io6 THE CHANCES 

Builders shape the growing walls 
With a trick of brain and hand, 

Something more than this to gain — 
Sand to clay, or clay to sand. 

So we bring and build, and say, 
''Heart, the house is well begun"; 

When the Master Builder calls, 
''Occupy — thy house is done." 



THE CHANCES 

I HEAR an anvil ringing 
With blow on blow, and swinging 
I seem to see all brawn and bare 
The arms that beat the anchor there. 

I hear an infant crying, 

A mother softly trying 

To quiet it with song and word 

Till slumber comes, a nestling bird. 

To think, O cradled baby, 
How years will pass, and maybe 
Thy velvet arms, no longer fair, 
May swing the hammer in the glare. 



THE DAYS 107 

To think, O blacksmith tawny, 
For all thy blow so brawny, 
To-morrow thou perchance may be 
A lesser thing than infancy. 



THE DAYS 

Days of spring, days of spring, 
Humming and humming; 

Bee and bird, bee and bird. 
Coming and coming. 

Summer days, summer days, 
Brighter and brighter; 

Full of light, full of light, 
Lighter and lighter. 

Autumn days, autumn days. 
Sweeter and sweeter; 

Fruitfuller, fruitfuller. 
Fleeter and fleeter. 

Winter days, winter days, 

Darker and darker; 
Iciness, iciness. 

Starker and starker. 



io8 THE FALLEN CASTLE 

Days of mine, days of thine — 

River and river, 
Flowing on, flowing on. 

Ever and ever. 



THE FALLEN CASTLE 

Go, summon our luckiest leaders. 
Give weapons to willing hands; 

In call of our wariest castle 
An alien army stands. 

Our note of alarm and defiance 
How little the legion heeds! 

No sentinels reckon their minutes — 
How careless a captain leads! 

All night an occasional drum-beat 
Rebuked us over our wine; 

His bugles have troubled the morning. 
His bayonets lean in line. 

Ah! what if he saw that our bastions 
Have never a faithful gun! 

Or what if he knew that our standard 
Hath never a battle won ! 



A FAR DEMESNE 109 

Quick, summon our heartiest captains, 

Put weapons in any hands; 
For here at the gate of the castle 

That aHen army stands. 

Lo! into the castle of Error 

A legion carried its light; 
The name of it, Truth and Honor, 

And the foremost captain, Right. 

A thousand like places of ours. 
Great leader, remain to be won — 

But a thousand like armies, advancing, 
Are favored by star and sun. 

'T were better to level our ramparts 

And beckon the conqueror in; 
Then lower forever the standard 

That will never a battle win. 



A FAR DEMESNE 

I DREAMED that Fancy led me 
On dewy paths and fed me 
With fruit that grew on either side, 
That my own touch withal defied. 



no A FAR DEMESNE 

From height to height I followed, 

Or where the dales were hollowed, 

And bud and blossom we picked and threw 

Into the places where none grew. 

Then Fancy said, full-turning 
Her eyes upon me burning, 
*'Now choose a height whereon to build 
Thy house, to have it sunset-filled." 

As one whom joy entrances 
I turned my longing glances 
On one fair summit, lone and far. 
That shone, a never-setting star. 

She saw the joy that filled me, 
The wonder wrapt that thrilled me. 
And said as one who had foreseen, 
"Yon height is not in my demesne. 

"No foot thereon can lead thee; 
Climb, fall, and none will heed thee: 
That is Imagination's own; 
Who reaches it will tread alone." 



GLIMPSES III 

A FEVER FANTASY 

{In a grave) 

The babble of life drips in, I feel 

The touch of occasional feet. 
There 's a violet less o'erhead to-day, 

I wonder who thought it was sweet. 

My Meg — She wanted to come with me, 

A beautiful wish for a girl's! 
If Satan hath need of a hand to queen. 

Let him follow her sin-black curls. 

I warrant she tends the garden path 

With another hand in hers, — 
I could paint her thought to a touch to-night 

Whenever a rose-leaf stirs. 

Ah! Meg, it is medicine time. 

GLIMPSES 

Where is the baby our arms have enfolded 

All the day long? 
(Into the charms of childhood moulded, 

Singing a song.) 



112 HALF-WAY 

Where is my daughter, then? bring her to me; 

Waiting I stand. 
(She goes with a sailor from sea to sea, 

Longing to land.) 

I '11 wait for the sailor to bring me my own, 

Wait, for I can. 
("Wait! " When he comes, he'll be gray and alone. 

Under a ban.) 

"Gray and alone! and alone," do you say? 

And the other? — 
(He will find the door open, the tenant away, 

For another.) 

HALF-WAY 

Half threescore years and ten! 

Another path appears; 
Good-bye, now, sweet Illusion, 

Thou comrade of young years ! 

Half threescore years and ten ! 

Now other days begin; 
With love and babe and hearthside. 

What more is there to win? 

Half threescore years and ten! 
If honor be not won. 



HALF-WAY 113 

Have we the heart to win it 
Ere winning days are done? 

Half threescore years and ten! 

The summers pass along 
With more of wayside sorrow 

And less of wayside song. 

Half threescore years and ten ! 

The early buds are blown; 
The coming years are mowers 

Who come to meadows mown. 

Half threescore years and ten ! 

Half-way across the stream 
A golden bridge is builded; 

The builders sleep and dream. 

Half threescore years and ten ! 
We hear it said and say: 
"The bridge of Life is only 
A golden one-half-way." 



114 HER CARE 

HER CARE 

How to lead her children 
Higher than their birth, 

How to give to houses 
All their inner worth, 

How to keep a love-light 
Brighter than a hearth; 

How to grow a garden 

In a wilderness, 
How her daily thought may 

Bless and bless and bless. 
How to make a sorrow 

Less and less and less. 

How to bring the light back 
When the day is dead, 

How to cover deftly 
Lack of love or bread, 

How when comfort faileth 
To seem comforted; 

How when words are idle 

Silently to bear. 
How to clear the by-way 

That would lead her — where? 
How to be a woman 

Is a woman's care. 



HYMN OF LIFE 115 



HYMN OF LIFE 

Our lives — not ours to give or hold — 
A day of toil to win a night's repose. 

Two nerveless hands — two feet at rest — a 
prayer — 
For these we wait — thus every life must close. 

The hopes we Ve fondled may go down, 

To come no more in sadder years; 
There 's something still to love and keep, 

Untorn by fate — unwet by tears. 

It may be what our boyhood knew 

Of gentle tones in guarded talk — 
A look from eyes that ne'er shone false — 

A laugh that had not learned to mock: 

Or what our manhood felt, a warmth — 
Lost sunshine sleeping on the heart — 

As round the quaint, low altar knelt 

Two forms — two lives untouched by art. 

Lo! through our sorrow-latticed way. 

How memory comes! — dead years are 
hers — 

And through the fancies of our hearts, 
An old, famihar gladness stirs. 



ii6 HYMN OF LIFE 

Then all the past is here again; 

Sweet lips — no goal but ours they knew — 
The hand we inly yearned to keep — 

The place where only roses grew. 

All these, but ah! a face of white 

Gleams from a shroud; long years have rolled 
Since in a quiet room he lay — 

Nor heard the prayer, nor bells that tolled. 

All these, aye, more; — we may not tell 
Of what the soul would guarded keep, 

That may no outward tremor feel. 
Watched o'er, unuttered e'en in sleep. 

Whose lips are loosed from passion, quite? 

What heart may live its memories down? 
How heavy falls the dust of years. 

That turns the whited leaves to brown. 

How dreaded is the tramp of days, 
That leave no music in their track — 

That steal the blush from cheek or rose, 
And give nor bloom, nor promise back? 

But life, and hope, and all we are. 

With all the love our deeds have won, ' 

Are but a handful in the shroud — 

How soon the sexton's task is done! 



IN A QUARRY 117 



IN A QUARRY 

Beat, beat, beat, 

I toil in a quarry alone, 
Till the day goes under the sea; 

I hammer and rift the stone. 

Beat, beat, beat. 

Will never the truth be known? 
With every blow my Hfe 

Goes into the stolid stone. 

Beat, beat, beat. 

To-morrow the visitors come; 
Whatever may happen, my blocks, 

To them be never so dumb ! 

Beat, beat, beat, 

You have gathered about my knee, 
When the dear, indifferent night 

Held nothing so sweet for me. 

Beat, beat, beat, 

O hearts that have hope with you there! 
By the altar my hand hath hewn, 

In the rapture and pause of prayer, 



ii8 IN DEBT 

(Beat, beat, beat,) 

In the lull of the hymn, ye hear 
As it were an imprisoned heart, 

O'erlaboring somewhere near. 

Beat, beat, beat. 

Ye may build whatever ye will, 
But mark it, a ruin will creep 

O'er column and cope and sill. 



IN DEBT 

A BIRD sings all the summer through, 
Ne'er leaving the old song for the new, 
And the words are, or they seem to be, 
"You owe me; you; you, you owe me." 

A bud about to bloom 

For a dead hand in my room, 

A hand but lately warm and wet 

And sweet as 't were shut on a violet; — 

God knows, — o'er all that flies or flows 

What I may owe to that one rose. 

A ship is coming in; she brings 
The latest song a poet sings. 
Many a sailing league a-lee 
Over the sea and over the sea; 



INTERCHANGE 119 

And never her swan-white sails are set 

But she bringeth me deeper and deeper in debt; — 

For all, if the singer should sing no more, 

The ship would come as she came before. 



O bird that constant sings! 
O bud about to bloom! 

ship whose coming brings 
A glory for my gloom, — 
New brawn to brain and loin, 
When every song is done, 
When every leaf is blown, 
When every voyage is run, 

1 own, with shame I own, 
I can but pay 

In current clay 

The debts I owe in coin. 



INTERCHANGE 

Each day a thousand joys are born, 
Each night a thousand joys lie dead, 
And there they lie unburied, 
Forlorn, forlorn. 
Till grief comes up to bury them 
With fit and tender requiem. 



120 A LATER VIEW 

Each day a thousand griefs are born, 
Each night a thousand griefs lie dead, 
And there they He unburied, 
Forlorn, forlorn, 
Till joy comes up to bury them 
With fit and tender requiem. 



A LATER VIEW 

I USED to wonder when a boy, 
When life was life and time a toy, 
Why men were old and why they went 
Along their way so bowed and spent. 

It is no wonder now to me; 
For when they pass I seem to see 
Upon the shoulders of them all 
The burdens that the years let fall. 

My sight is clearer now than then; 
I find myself a man with men; 
Now 1 begin to feel and see 
What things the years let fall on me. 

What things to bow me or to break! 
What things to hope for others' sake! 



MAID OF ALLEVOU 121 

What things to hinder or to blind! 
What things to bind me or unbind ! 

I do not know; they may be less 
Than others bear. The Lord I bless, 
As I would try to though they were 
More than they are and heavier. 

I dare not hope; I can but pray, 

ye, my brothers by the way ! 

1 may not add the lightest care 
To burdens ye already bear. 



MAID OF ALLEVOU 

Morning dawned upon AUevou; 
Sunbeams, barefoot, softly crept, 

Kissing from the wondering blossoms 
Tears the weary night had wept — 
Heavy tears the night had wept. 

In the valley stood a dwelling — 
Closed and barred the oaken door; 

But the beams, the windows forcing, 
Played about the sanded floor; 
Romped and quivered on the floor. 



122 MAID OF ALLEVOU 

None may know for whom they waited - 
Why they tarried none may tell; 

Yet we thought we heard among them 
Lispings such as these — ah! well, 
Maybe 't would not do to tell. 

Soon the door swung on its hinges 
Slowly, with a drawling creak, 

And a maid stood on the threshold — 
Fair she was as Powers' Greek; 
Fair as Powers' marble Greek. 

O ! that form was rarer, sweeter 
Than a dream of Raphael's; 

And her voice in echoes lingered 
Like the mellow talk of bells; 
Like the distant sound of bells. 

Up the valley and the hillside 
Fled she like a frightened fawn; 

None may know, and none need ask me 
Why she flew, bareheaded on; 
Why at all she hurried on. 

Look! dost see her dark hair streaming? 

Note her cheek — its crimson glow. 
Is she — nay, she can't be dreaming — 

Is she mad? — why flies she so? 

Madness only hurries so. 



A MILLER'S MADRIGAL 123 

Lo ! she stays — athwart her features 

Signs of bitter anguish roll; 
Pale, she seems to sink, exhausted. 

On a soft and mossy knoll; 

Sinks she softly on a knoll. 

And her voice was strangely lifted — 
Neither soft, nor sweet, nor low: 

"Susan, bring the salve!" halloed she; 

*' Trying to head off that heifer, 

I have been and stubbed my toe — 
That — infernal — critter — oh! " 



A MILLER'S MADRIGAL 

A GRIST in the hopper, the sun on the sill, 

An' a heigho ! 
Lucky the lane that comes out at a mill, 

An' a heigho ! 
Over his profit the honey-bee hums, 
Out of his blanket the butterfly comes. 

An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

The Doctor comes up on his mite of a mare, 

An' a heigho ! 
We agree this old world is all out o' repair, 

An' a heigho ! 



124 A MILLER'S MADRIGAL 

But we leave it alone in our neighborly chats, 
An' he mixes a mess for my beggarly rats, 
An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

The 'Squire, o' late, he rides double with Care, 

An' a heigho! 
Two mouths at a manger have left his mow 
bare. 
An' a heigho ! 
He never calls for the foot o' my score. 
Till it runs from the rafter clean down to the 
floor, 
An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

The Parson 's the best o' the black-coated clan, 

An' a heigho ! 
There is wheat he makes out in the branniest 
bran. 

An' a heigho ! 
He never grudges a grain o' my toll. 
He has an eye for a shoat or a foal, 

An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

The sun 's at the gable, come hurry, old wheel. 

An' a heigho ! 
What say, my good widow, a coin in your meal? 

An' a heigho ! 
'T was in your corn, maybe, the Lord only 
knows, 



MORGAN STANWOOD 125 

He tempers the lamb — I forget how it goes, 
An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

The greater the worry the lighter the gain, 

An' a heigho! 
The deeper the furrow the better the grain. 

An' a heigho! 
The thicker the stubble the fuller the bin. 
The darker without side the lighter within. 

An' a heigho, an' a heigh! 

There are haps in the air that a minute may bring, 

An' a heigho! 
For a cock is more sure of his head than a king, 

An' a heigho! 
So I sing out the days in my own merry mill, 
A grist in the hopper, the sun on the sill, 

An' a heigho, an' a heigh ! 



MORGAN STANWOOD 
Cape Ann, 1775 

Morgan Stanwood, patriot! 

Little more is known; 
Nothing of his home is left 

But the doorstep stone. 



126 MORGAN STANWOOD 

Morgan Stanwood, to our thought 

You return once more; 
Once again the meadows Hft 

Daisies to your door. 

Once again the morn is sweet, 
Half the hay is down, — 

Hark ! what means that sudden clang 
From the distant town? 

Larum bell and rolling drum 

Answer sea-borne guns; 
Larum bell and rolling drum 

Summon Freedom's sons. 

And the mower thinks to him 
Cry both bell and drum, 
" Morgan Stanwood, where art thou? 
Here th' invaders come!" 

"Morgan Stanwood" need no more 
Bell and drum-beat call; 
He is one who, hearing once, 
Answers once for all. 

Ne^er the mower murmured then, 
"Half my grass is mown, 



MORGAN STANWOOD 127 

Homespun is n't soldier-wear, 
Each may save his own." 

Fallen scythe and aftermath 

Lie forgotten now; 
Winter need may come and find 

But a barren mow. 



Down the musket comes. " Good wife, — 

Wife, a quicker flint!" 
And the face that questions face 

Hath no color in 't. 

"Wife, if I am late to-night, 
Milk the heifer first; — 
Ruth, if I 'm not home at all, — 
Worse has come to worst." 

Morgan Stanwood sped along. 

Not the common road; 
Over wall and hilltop straight, 

Straight to death he strode; 

Leaving her to hear at night 

Tread of burdened men. 
By the gate and through the gate, 

At the door, and then — 



128 MORGAN STANWOOD 

Ever after that to hear, 

When the grass is sweet, 
Through the gate and through the night, 

Slowly coming feet. 

Morgan Stanwood's roof is gone; 

Here the doorstep lies; 
One may stand thereon and think, — 

For the thought will rise, — 

Were we where the meadow was. 

Mowing grass alone, 
Would we go the way he went, 

From this very stone? 

Were we on the doorstep here, 

Parting for a day, 
Would we utter words as though 

Parting were for aye? 

Would we? Heart, the hearth is dear, 

Meadow math is sweet; 
Parting be as parting may, 

After all, we meet. 



NOVEMBER 129 

NOVEMBER 

BEFORE THE HEARTH 



Life sings 

Remember, love, remember, 
There hath been light upon the hearth 

Before the hopeless ember, 
And June had filled a month with mirth 
Before the bare November. 
Remember, love, remember 
The bygone light on hearth and wall, 

And not the hapless ember, — 
The song and bloom and gleam and all 
Of June and not November: 
Remember, love, remember. 



II 
November sings 

Remember, love, remember! 
Who sings before my face to-day, 

Of me as bare November? 
Not they who happy pluck away 

The apple from the ember; 



I30 NOW 

Remember, love, remember, 

Not they who see the hght to come, 

The beam below the ember, — 
Who keep the hearth-side sunny from 
November to November: 
Remember, love, remember! 



NOW 

I 'm alone m my chamber to-night, Harry, 

Alone with the listening night, — 
And a phantom entereth the room, Harry, 

As soft as the stealthy light. 
And it stands there silently bending 

Its eyes to my chained gaze, — 
Methinks 't is a ghost from the past, Harry, 

With the roll of my misspent days. 



It comes to my shuddering form, Harry, 

And its fingers are on my brow; 
And it says, with a voice so sad, Harry, 

''I 'm the oft-discarded Now. 
Ye have tossed me aside from your pathway, 

To welcome a future time; 
And ye sigh for the lagging past, ever 

With sorrow and words sublime." 



NOW 131 

O! her touch is so icy and dank, Harry, 

That it freezes my throbbing heart; — 
O ! it rests on my shrinking brow, Harry, 

And giveth my soul a start. 
Like a ghost and a spur it comes, Harry, 

To startle my listless life — 
And my thoughts do ebb and flow, Harry, 

Like the tide of a deadly strife. 



She holds in her hand a scroll, Harry, 

A scroll with a penciled wreath; 
And my name is written above, Harry, 

Not a word nor an act beneath. 
From my lips she taketh the bowl, Harry, 

The bowl with the Lethean draught. 
Which we oft together have praised, Harry, 

And together a bumper quaffed. 



And she leaves in my hand a scroll, Harry, 

The scroll with a circhng wreath; 
"Your name is above," she says, Harry, 

" Go finish the blank beneath. 
Let the bowl of Oblivion stain ne'ermore 

Thy lips with its deadly tide; — 
The Past is a creeping hearse, ever, 

Where the corse and the sexton ride. 



132 NOW 

" Go toil in the vineyard and field, sluggard, 

Broad scatter the waiting seed, 
That the harvest may shine in thy storehouse. 

For the day of thy wintry need. 
Bear a couch to the wounded and weary, 

A pall to the pulseless slain; 
And thy heart shall grow light, as the fever 

Of indifference leaveth thy brain." 



I am hearing her faint, slow step, Harry, 

As it falls on the downward stair, 
And the tears from my eyes drop, drop, Harry, 

Like the step that is falling there. 
I would come to thee fain to-night, Harry, 

With the grief of my tortured soul, — 
And bear to thy listless touch, Harry, 

A pen and the empty scroll. 



Let us both to the world's broad fields, Harry, 

Put our hands to the searching plough. 
''Not a thought of the future or past," Harry, 

Whispers the prompter. Now. 
Let us heed not the changing mirage, Harry, 

That gleams in the future's false sun; 
But work with a courage sublime, Harry, 

Till life and its cares are done. 



OVER 133 



OVER 



Earth's winding-sheet that drips and drips, 
A sudden reach of the kindled sea, 
A wind that is oftener good than ill, 
A sweet forerunner preempts a tree, 
And the winter is over. 

The annual wane of green and bloom, 
Families under the cloistered eaves. 
An apple drops from its crooning nurse, 
You look for a hand among the leaves — 
The summer is over. 

A breath of the viol brief and sweet, 
An answering ripple of two and two, — 
Was it a wail of the wind or no? 
Perhaps it is well that no one knew — 
The revel is over. 

One in a cradle, the light of home. 
Then two at the altar hand in hand. 
The broken earth, a wreath just laid, 
A gate is shut on the golden land, 
And the lesson is over. 



134 OVERNIGHT 



OVERNIGHT 

Yesterday a forward bud 
With a promise filled the room, 

And to-day there in its stead, 
Blessing, stands a rose in bloom. 

Yesterday we thought to see 
Leaf by leaf its life unclose, 

Or to feel the moment flush 
When the bud became a rose. 

So a child we keep a child 
As we keep a bud unblown; 

All at once, a blush, a glance, 
Comes the maiden woman grown. 

Life, O Life, your every chance 
We waylay and flash surmise; 

But it comes another way, 
In an unimagined guise. 

Watch and listen when we may — 
Out of love or out of fear — 

Something will go by unseen 
Or unheard that we would hear. 



QUESTION AND ANSWER 135 

But I hope with all my hope 
I may know the now unknown, 

Sometime hear the now unheard, 
See, and not with eyes alone. 

And indeed I make no doubt, 
Soon or late, this perfect sight 

Through the dark will come to me. 
As the rose came — overnight. 



QUESTION AND ANSWER 

Heart, my heart in me, say, why dost thou sing? 

For the spring hath gone by, 
And the summer hath ripened; on changeable wing 

Are no birds in the sky, 
The lea hath no joy on its withered brown breast. 

And the sea is so gray, 
Why seek in the east and the south and the west 

For the soul of the day? 

I dreamed with the sparrow, ran after the spring, 

Saw the change in the sea; 
I buried, ah! slowly, the joy that was dead 

In the breast of the lea. 
The birds of the springtime went silent away 

From bough and from nest. 
Some built in my being; the builders anon 

Flew after the rest. 



136 THE RETURN 



THE RETURN 

A BIRD fell out of the sky, 

Out- worn by the way; 
Her comrades contmued their flight, 

What need to delay? 
Winging and wearily winging, 

Making the most of the day. 

Theirs the magnificent sweep 
Where the leader may lead; 

Hers the indifferent lot 
Of a sea-broken weed, — 

Day unto desolate day 
And night unto need. 

Southward her comrades return; 

A voice overhead 
Calleth to her; she replies, 

Her wings are outspread; 
Hers the old, comforting life, — 

To lead or be led. 



ROUTINE 137 



ROUTINE 



Straight between two hills beclouded; 

To and from their silent shores, 
Rows a ferry-man as silent, 

Never leaning on his oars. 

Hill that holds the coming sunlight, 
Hill that holds the waning, too, 

Hinders not the restless rower, — 
Ever leaving, ever due. 

Be the sky or full or empty, 
Whether one or none come in, 

He must ferry, ever ferry. 
Ending only to begin. 

Far below him hum the cities, 
Far above the mountains dream, — 

He must touch the land and leave it 
For a path upon the stream; 

For a path upon the river 

To the hands that beckon, blind. 

While the year that lies before him 
Mates the year that stands behind. 



138 THE SEEKER 

Do I know the hills that hinder, 
And the river there between? 

Droning mart and mountain dreamy, 
And the ferry-man Routine? 

Hearts, farewell, my duty presses, 
Mine is that familiar oar, 

And the year that lies behind me 
Mates the year that stands before. 



THE SEEKER 

"I WOULD I knew," a seeker said, 
''Where lies the spring of Poesy; 
So many paths before me lie 
And every one misleading me." 

The clouds above him heard and threw 
A hint of shadow on the spring, 

A saucy bird crept up and sang 
And told him plain as song could sing. 

A little leaf unnoted fell. 

Towards the spring it crept and flew, 
And other leaves chirped after it, — 

But leaves are such a chirping crew! 



A SOUL'S DOUBT 139 

A tiny sunbeam pointed straight 
With finger sly as sunbeam could; 

But he hath quite enough to hunt 

Who follows sunbeams through a wood. 

The wind said all that wind can say, 
And told and told the leaves to tell, 

And many a flower toward it leaned. 
And every acorn swung her bell. 

The cloud may hint, the bird may sing, 
The leaf may creep, the wind may tell. 

The sunbeam point, the blossom lean. 
The news be rung from bell to bell. 

And only one will hear and see. 

Who never loses note or hint; 
The poet finds alone the spring, — 

He comes and goes and leaves no print. 



A SOUL'S DOUBT 

Two friends were mine in weal and woe; 
One lies where grasses fail and grow, 
The other walks the busy street; 
He meets the very eyes I meet. 



140 STILL TENANTED 

But he is dead to me as though 
He, too, were under grass and snow. 

If gods agree 

Which of the three 

'T were best to be. 
They do not say. Ah! do they know? 



STILL TENANTED 

Old house, how desolate thy life! 

Nay, life and death alike have fled; 
Nor thrift, nor any song within. 

Nor daily thought for daily bread. 

The dew is nightly on thy hearth. 
Yet something sweeter to thee clings. 

And some who enter think they hear 
The murmur of departing wings. 

No doubt within the chambers there, — 
Not by the wall nor through the gate, 

Uncounted tenants come, to whom 
The house is not so desolate. 

To them the walls are white and warm. 
The chimneys lure the laughing flame. 

The bride and groom take happy hands, 
The newborn babe awaits a name. 



A SUMMER MOOD 141 

Who knows what far-off journeyers 
At night return with winged feet, 

To cool their fever in the brook, 
Or haunt the meadow, clover-sweet? 

And yet the morning mowers find 
No footprint in the grass they mow, 

The water's clear, unwritten song 
Is not of things that come or go. 

'T is not forsaken rooms alone 
That unseen people love to tread. 

Nor in the moments only when 
The day's eluded cares are dead. 

To every home, or high or low, 
Some unimagined guests repair, 

Who come unseen to break and bless 
The bread and oil they never share. 



A SUMMER MOOD 

I LAY me in the growing grass, 
A vagrant loving vagrancy; 

About me kindred fellows throng, 
A very reckless company, — 



142 A THOROUGHFARE 

Gay people of the crowded air, 
Who follow Joy's recruiting drums; 

Nor thrift, nor any thorn, they leave 
To-morrow till to-morrow comes. 



Who gathers all, would gather more; 

Who little hath, hath need of none; 
Who wins a race will long to win 

Another that is never won. 

I fling me in the grass, content 
That not a blade belongs to me, 

And take no thought for mowing days, 
A vagrant wed to vagrancy. 



A THOROUGHFARE 

Open to their will and way, 
Shadow-sandaled feet and bare 

Make a by-way dark and lone 
Their familiar thoroughfare. 

Kings without a kingdom known 
Make a royal progress here; 

Queens who only lived to lure 
Follow clown and cavalier. 



A THOROUGHFARE 143 

Cattle-mongers with their droves 

Fill and bar the common way, 
While the cattle that they claim 

Look more owner-like than they. 

Elfin mothers and their broods 

Wanton as in elfin-land; 
Mermen who forsake the sea 

Play in drifts of golden sand. 

Gypsy girls with dreary eyes 
Mingle with the wondrous train; 

When they seem forever by, 
Turn to come and go again. 

Children of the poet's thought, 

That to ruder days belong, 
Skip and dance and leer and laugh 

In the meshes of a song. 

Beings that the painter's touch 

Left forever incomplete — 
Faces in the sunshine half. 

Half in shadow, droll and sweet — 

Group and part and group again. 
Still to be what they have been — 

Dark and Hght, and light and dark, 
Nor all shadow, nor all sheen. 



144 TOO EARLY 

Shapes that tongue can never name, 
On their faces broken gleams, 

Empty tinted trifles down, 

Singing only, "We are dreams." 

Never blade of grass may grow 
Where so many footsteps fall; 

Yet a timid bud may bloom 
Lowly by the wayside wall. 

Gate and bar availeth naught. 
Shadow-sandaled feet and bare 

Make the by-way of my brain 
Their familiar thoroughfare. 

And the phantoms will go on, 
Still pursuing and pursued, 

Till the throne of Thought becomes 
Vacant in a solitude. 



TOO EARLY 

Birdie with a troubled mate, 
You have come too early; 

Spring hath loitered now so late, 
Winter 's old and surly. 



TOO EARLY 145 

Winter is a landlord grim 

To such early comers; 
Cheerless are his chambers dim, 

Coming out of Summer's. 

Birdie, I would like to know 

How you came to win her! 
Were you swift, another slow? 

Say, you lucky sinner! 

Maybe you are not a spouse, 

But a tricksy wooer. 
Who hath promised sweeter boughs 

Than another to her. 

Maybe you are bride and groom 

On a wedding visit; 
Then the world is all in bloom, 

And an Eden is it. 

Maybe, though, the wedding-ring 

Is a trifle rusty, 
And the sharer of thy wing 

Grows a moment crusty. 

Doth she with a cruel shrug 

Of a promise twit you? 
Bring a bit of happy slug. 

She will fain acquit you. 



146 TOO TRUE 

Birdie, don't you think we know 
Something of your pickle? 

How the brightest joke you grow 
Never seems to tickle 1 



How the sweetest thing you do 
Hath no sweetness in it? 

How you 're interrupted, too, 
Every busy minute? 

Birdie, keep your temper, dear. 
Humor all her humors! 

Spring is loitering so near, 
Rumor of her rumors. 



TOO TRUE 

How oft within for one we wait, 
And turn Him empty from the gate! 

How oft the Master of the feast 
Honors the guest we look to, least ! 



A WANDERER 147 

UNSEEN HANDS 

O YEARS, believe me, for I know 
Ye would have long since laid me low 

But for the hands that lift unseen 
The burdens of the day at e'en. 

Not always fingers warm though dear, 

Nor only voices ye may hear, 
Bear off the burdens of the day, 

Charm with a charm the care away. 

Ah! no, some hands invisible. 
So Fancy tells and loves to tell, 

Seek the worn places of the heart 
And build anew the broken part. 



A WANDERER 

The lighted windows of his thought 
A poet opened to the day, 

And let a little song go out. 
To fly away, away, away! 

Away, away, away it flies — 
The world was made to wander in; 



148 A WANDERER 

From lip to lip, from land to land, 
Where lovers love or spinners spin. 



From land to land, from lip to lip — 

How sweet the world to wander through! 

It found no heart to nestle in 

Like that it emptied when it flew. 

It came again on weary wing, 
To windows closing to the day, 

That let the little song come in — 
It knew the way, it knew the way. 

Into the fastness of his heart. 

Where Life had made a sudden stand. 

The wanderer came bringing back 
A singing heart and empty hand. 

"My song," the dying poet said, 
''The world is lost to me for aye; 
But thou hast won it, by a chance 
Or by a charm, whatever way. 

" For I would have my song be more 
Than I have been to brother life — 
A tinkling brook in desert dreams, 
A certain bugle in the strife." 



A WANDERER 149 

"Dear heart," the song then sweetly sang, 
"The world is nothing, lost or won; 
I come to hover near thee now, 

If charm and chance for thee are done." 



The singer breathed the song again, 

Away, away, away it flew. 
Who knows where it may be to-day? 

It thrills me, singer, through and through. 

Where lovers love or spinners spin, 
There comes a hurrying refrain: 
" The world is lost to me for aye." 
They listen, love, or spin again. 

"The world is nothing, lost or won," 
Comes in a tender undertone; 
Then love and labor hear and bless, 
And, happy, make the song their own. 

And thus his song is neither brook 

Nor battle-seeking clarion; 
But sweet no less to brother life, 

It flits and sings though he is gone. 



I50 WHY? 

WHO HATH NOT 

Who hath not, of his Hfe a part, 
Some inner, oft-frequented room, 

That hears no footfall but his own. 
In days to him of gleam or gloom, 

Who hath not this may garner all 
His ripened opportunities; 

He never knows, he cannot know, 
What Life may be by what it is. 



WHY? 

Why are our poets bringing 
Their ample sheaves, and singing 

Their Even-Songs so soon? 
What finer light foresee they. 

That dims their afternoon? 

We wait nor lighter bearers, 
Nor any coming sharers. 

To make our cup complete, — 
Nor touch of happy viols 

To make the song more sweet. 



WIND THE CLOCK 151 

In autumn-time or later, 
For lesser song or greater, 

We lean a longing ear; 
Why fill us with forebodings 

That silent days are near? 



WIND THE CLOCK 

Warden, wind the clock again; 
Mighty years are going on, 
Through the shadow and the dream. 
And the happy-hearted dawn. 
Wind again, wind again, — 
Fifty hundred years are gone. 

Through the harvest and the need, 
Wealthy June and dewy May, 
Grew the new year from the old, 
jrows to-morrow from to-day. 
Wind again, wind again, — 
Who can keep the years at bay? 

Four-and- twenty conjurers 
Lie in wait on land and sea, 
Plucking down the startled ship. 
Bud-embroidering the tree. 

Wind again, wind again, — 
We have neither ship nor tree. 



152 A WOMAN'S PRAISE 

Four-and-twenty kings to come 
Up the never- vacant stair, — 
Four-and-twenty dead go down; 
Follow, sacred song and prayer. 

Wind again, wind again, — 
Warden, why delaying there? 

To his interrupted dream 
Comes the long-entreated day. 
What are lesser words to him? 
Sweet pursuing voices say, — 
"Warden, wind, wind again, 
Up the ever-golden way." 

Other hands will wind the clock 
While the frequent years go on, 
Never noting need or name 
Nor the rapture of the dawn. 

Wind again, wind again, 
Ere the given year be gone. 



A WOMAN'S PRAISE 

Sweeter than a bird's song 
When we look for snow, — 

Sweeter than a brook's song 
When the brook is low, — 
Is her voice. 



A WOMAN'S PRAISE 153 

Lighter than the twihght 

On a summer sea, — 
Lighter than the daylight 

On a dewy lea, — 
Is her foot. 



Sweeter than all sweetness 
When she answers, "yes,' 

Lighter than all lightness 
When she comes to bless. 
Is herself. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



After . 

After All . 

After Barren Mays 

Afterglow, An 

"Among the Hills" 

An Immortelle . 

An Intruder 

Answer, The 

Arbutusing 

Before and After 

Benison, A 

Beset . 

Beyond the Book 

Blown Off . 

Bohemian Melody, A 

Bohemian Melodies 

Book-Lover to his Books, A 

Bread and Song . 

Bridges 

Brook-Life . 

Building 

Chances, The 

Coast-wise . 

Day of Days, A . 

Days, The . 

Day unto Day . 

Difference, The . 

Dream, The 

Driftwood Gatherer, The 

Fallen Castle, The 

Far Demesne, A . 

Fever Fantasy, A 

Fisherman's Feint, The 

Fishermen, The . ^ 

Flower of Submission, The 



9 
93 

2 

91 

94 

3 

23 
51 
94 
95 
98 

98 

100 

72 

51 

52 

102 

103 

53 
104 

105 
106 

75 
30 
107 
42 
10 

54 

II 

108 

109 

III 

II 

77 

55 



155 



156 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Glimpses 

Half-way 

Her Bouquet 

Her Care 

Hymn of Life 

Idler's Idyl, An 

In a Garden 

In a Quarry 

In Autumn 

In Debt 

Interchange 

In the Sea . 

It Seems 

Jerry an' Me 

Land and Sea 

Later View, A 

Leaves on the Tide 

Lines read at the ''Procter Gathering' 

Looked-For 

Lying Bird, The 

Maid of Allevou 

Miller's Madrigal, A 

Misled 

Mist . . 

Moravian Melody, A 

Morgan Stanwood 

Night's Peril, A . 

November: Before the Hearth 

Now .... 

Ocean of Hope, The . 

One out of Many 

One Port alone . 

Only a Glimpse . 

On the Brink 

On the Lake 

On the Loss of the Oneida 

Out of the Storm 

Over .... 

Over-night . 

Parting Word, The 

Question and Answer . 

Reared in a Room 

Restless, The 



INDEX OF TITLES i57 

Return, The ^36 

Rose and Thorn . . . • • • -05 

Routine -^37 

Sailor's Ditty, A ^5 

Sand-Castles 7 

Seeker, The ^3« 

Seeking 4 

Skipper Hermit, The Jj 

Slavonic Melody, A ^^ 

Soul's Doubt, A 139 

Spring 66 

Still Tenanted i40 

Summer Mood, A i4i 

Sunset ^6 

Thoroughfare, A ^42 

Thrift ^7 

Too Early ^44 

To One at a Distance "7 

Too True ^40 

To the Absent ^^ 

To the Wind 69 

Unfulfilled ^^ 

Unseen Hands ^47 

Verses ...•••••• 34 

Wanderer, A ^47 

While I May 22 

Who Hath Not ^S© 

Who Knows? 20 

Why? ^50 

Wind's Reply, The 21 

Wind the Clock ^S^ 

Woman's Praise, A ^52 

Your Bark and Mine ^9 



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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

U.S.A. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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